


Folding Stars

by capnclarke (wherehopelies), Manda_Malice



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-03-17 05:10:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3516584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wherehopelies/pseuds/capnclarke, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manda_Malice/pseuds/Manda_Malice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla Karnstein stays in the shadows, never seeming to notice the people around her. But one person she can't seem to STOP noticing is Laura Hollis. The two soon realize that they have a lot to teach other and that life is all about how you fold it!</p><p>** Discontinued**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Co-written by tumblr users kellyymanning and capnclarke. This chapter written by capnclarke. Track the tumblr tag "carmilla origami au" for updates and use that tag to communicate with us if you prefer not to use our ask boxes. We are going to try to update weekly or every other week hopefully. Thanks!

Laura is not a rude person. She really isn’t. She holds the door for people on a daily basis and always says please and thank you.

Her dad didn’t raise her in a barn.

So when Carmilla Karnstein isn’t getting out of Laura’s seat after the bell has already rung for passing period, she’s really conflicted. She doesn’t want to say anything because that’s rude, but like, that is her seat.

She awkwardly hovers next to the desk like an impatient hummingbird until there’s only two minutes left before class starts. Then she can’t take it anymore.

“Excuse me,” she says because like she said, she is a polite individual.

Carmilla raises an eyebrow, but her gaze never wavers from the paper she’s folding between her hands on the desk. “Can I help you?”

“You’re in my seat.” She adjusts her backpack strap, staring down at Carmilla’s bracelets and hoping the girl doesn’t yell at her. Not that Carmilla is scary exactly. It’s just that her mom is the Dean of Discipline and Carmilla scowls a lot and Laura hasn’t really ever spoken to her before even though they’ve had a few classes together in the past.

“I don’t see your name on it,” Carmilla drawls, her hands creasing a fold in the paper. Laura purses her lips angrily.

“Mr. Wilcox assigned it to me. Fifth period is over. Sixth is about to start and you’re probably going to be late.”

Carmilla finally looks at her and rolls her eyes. “Well we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Laura shakes her head, uncertain if Carmilla is being sarcastic or not. She probably is. “You could get detention.”

“God forbid.” Carmilla stands up and drapes her messenger bag over her shoulder. “Here. For your trouble, cutie.” She presses the paper she’s been fiddling with into Laura’s hands and she looks down at it, her face crinkling in confusion at the origami cat made of notebook paper.

She opens her mouth to say something, a thank you probably, but Carmilla is already moving away from her, her red flannel shirt disappearing into the hallway just as the late bell rings.

Laura sits down in her seat and drops her backpack onto the floor, unzipping it and taking out her notebook and pen and stowing the paper cat in a smaller pocket as Mr. Wilcox starts the day’s lecture on the American Revolution.

Later, when she’s at home and pulling out her homework, she sees the cat and absentmindedly takes a pushpin and hangs it on the wall of her bedroom.

It’s pretty cute, she thinks. And Carmilla gave it to her. It’d just be rude not to.

 

The next day when Laura enters Mr. Wilcox’s classroom for sixth period, Carmilla is nowhere in sight and she sits down at her desk in peace.

There is, however, a notebook-paper flower on her desk, and she picks it up, twirling the stem around her fingers.

She wonders if Carmilla left this for her, or if she simply left it.

When Mr. Wilcox starts lecturing, she carefully stows the flower in her backpack. Later that night she pushpins it to her wall next to the cat.

She doesn’t know why, but she likes them, and they’re cute, and for some reason she can’t stop wondering why someone who seems as hardened as Carmilla Karnstein would make something so soft.

 

She really likes class for the most part, but lunch is Laura’s favorite part of the day. She loves when she sits at their lunch table and everyone rambles on about their days and scrambles to finish homework. She loves when LaFontaine talks about chemistry and when Danny talks about her upcoming track meets and she likes when they ask her about her journalism class.

That’s why she’s smiling like an idiot when she sits down on Friday. She’s sure her friends will have some exciting weekend plans to talk about.

Or you know, not.

“Ugh,” Danny says, dropping her backpack to the ground with a thud. “I hate AP Lit so much.”

Laura crinkles her nose sympathetically. “I’m sorry, Danny.”

“It’s fine.” Danny swoops her long red hair over her shoulder. “I’m just so pissed. We had a debate today and I totally would’ve won if Mrs. Halloway didn’t have a giant lady boner for Carmilla.”

She feels her eyebrows raise in surprise. “Carmilla Karnstein?”

Danny nods. “Yeah. She thinks she’s so high and mighty. She’s so pretentious. Like okay, we get it, you understand Dracula. Whatever.”

“Interesting,” LaFontaine chimes in. “I had her in Bio last year and she didn’t say a word the whole year.”

“Really? Well in English, she’s a raging bitch.”

“Danny,” Perry chides.

Danny shrugs and takes a bite of her apple. “I’m serious, Perr.”

Laura purses her lips and thinks of what she knows about Carmilla Karnstein, which admittedly, isn’t much. She does know that it’s been two weeks since Carmilla was in her seat in History and every day she’s left Laura notebook-paper presents. Well, at least Laura thinks they’re for her. She guesses she can’t be sure.

But she’s built up quite the collection. Besides the cat, she has three different kinds of flowers, a 3D heart, a butterfly, and a cute little frog that actually hops when she flicks the back of it down.

She thinks they’re all really sweet, and she has a hard time thinking Carmilla is a bitch. She doesn’t even like that word. It’s so rude.

“Well at least you only have to see her in English,” LaF says and takes a bite of their pizza. They get sauce on their face and Perry smiles fondly and wipes it off.

“Yeah, except sometimes I see her when I’m hanging with Kirsch. He’s friends with her brother, Will.”

Laura looks around the cafeteria, but doesn’t spot Carmilla anywhere. Still, she doesn’t like talking about people behind their backs like this. “Well, I’m sure she’s not that bad.”

Danny opens her mouth to protest, but the warning bell rings and they all start packing up their lunches and heading off to class.

When Laura gets to sixth period History an hour later and sees a notebook-paper elephant on her desk, she crinkles her nose in a smile.

She doesn’t know much about Carmilla Karnstein, but she has a hard time believing that the girl is a –

She’s not even going to think that word. It’s just too rude.

—-

 

Laura Hollis never seems to see Carmilla, but Carmilla sees her.

In the hallways. In the lunchroom. In her thoughts.

Which like, yeah she gets it. It’s not really normal. They’ve had approximately one conversation in three years.

But it’s not just Laura. Carmilla notices a lot of things that other people don’t.

So it’s really surprising that she never really noticed Laura Hollis before their conversation. She thinks she should have.

Laura is the kind of person that should infuriate her. And in some ways she does. Like why does the girl give a fuck if she gets detention or not?

But Laura intrigues her in ways that most people don’t. Like… why does the girl give a fuck if she gets detention or not???

So yeah. It’s complicated.

Laura is just so tiny, but also so big. At least, Carmilla thinks so.

Since Laura suddenly appeared in Carmilla’s space – space that she usually shares with approximately no one – Carmilla can’t stop noticing her.

And she noticed that Laura seems to take up lots of space in other people’s lives too. Like the ginger triplets and that tall Neanderthal of a football player whom her brother insists on calling his “number one bro” or something.

She doesn’t know how this random collection of nerds and athletes and science dorks came to be friends, but she does have a working theory:

People gravitate toward Laura Hollis.

After two weeks of not being able to stop thinking about Laura, she’s starting to believe that she’s not an exception to the theory.

 

Carmilla likes origami.

She likes that she can take something as ordinary as paper and turn it into something cool. It’s relaxing to feel her hands go through the familiar motions of folding and creasing. She enjoys the challenge of learning a new model and the satisfaction when she finally gets it right.

Plus it’s something to do in her boring classes. Like Health. And History.

Especially History.

She yawns as Mr. Wilcox lectures about The Battle of Who Gives a Shit in the War of She Honestly Could Not Care Less and continues creasing the fold of a paper crane she’s working on.

It’s one of the first designs she’d learned, so it’s practically mindless for her when she makes the last fold and sets it upright on her desk.

She fiddles with the finished product and her mind drifts to thinking about Laura Hollis, a bad habit that she can’t seem to shake despite the fact that it’s totally nuts to be thinking of a girl she doesn’t even know.

Whatever. Hollis is hot, okay?

She sighs and looks at the clock. Only two more minutes. She can do this.

She’s sitting there counting down the seconds until the bell rings, turning the paper crane between her fingers, when she gets an idea.

So it’s totally demented and Laura will probably think she’s crazy, or worse, not even give a shit, but whatever, it’s not like they talk.

Carmilla clicks the pen resting on her desk (she briefly thought about taking notes today) and lays the crane flat against the surface. She scrawls her number on the crane and a quick note – I take requests – and clicks the pen closed just as the bell rings.

Leaving the crane sitting on the desk, she slings her bag over her shoulder and makes her way out into the hallway which is quickly flooding with students. She sees Laura across the hall talking to the tallest of the ginger squad – Dakota or something (whatever, she doesn’t care) – and she hovers against the row of lockers, just watching.

Laura smiles this crinkly little grin that Carmilla finds disgustingly adorable and the tall gingerpuff leans closer to her. She looks at Laura like she’s the last dessert at the buffet, all googly-eyed and enamored.

Carmilla kind of wants to barf, but she can’t tear her eyes away because Laura bounces on her toes, actually bounces, and it’s so fucking cute in all the wrong ways.

Laura squeezes the Redwood Pine’s arm before saying goodbye and somewhere in the back of her mind, Carmilla feels soft.

But she isn’t soft. She’s never been soft. She’s hard and sharp like glass and years of her mother telling her that her attitude could cut diamonds is enough proof that she would shatter something as soft and beautiful as Laura Hollis.

She melts into the crowd of people as Laura comes closer to Wilcox’s classroom, turning on her heel and walking the other way toward the library just as Laura goes through the door.

Maybe Laura will text her. Or not. Whatever.

It’d just be nice to have a project to work on during class before Wilcox bores her so much that her brain spills out of her ears, that’s all.

 

She’s lying in the darkness, drifting somewhere between consciousness and restless dreaming when her phone vibrates against the wood of her night stand.

She rolls onto her other side and grabs her phone, squinting at the harsh light of her lock screen.

Unknown number (12:57 am): The first cat is a little lonely!!! He could use a buddy!!

At first she’s confused because she’s like, half asleep and it’s an unknown number, but then she remembers the crane and the cat from their first conversation and if she’s being honest, she didn’t really expect Laura Hollis to be the type of girl to skimp on her exclamation marks.

She sets her phone back on the night stand and rolls onto her stomach, intent on falling back into her state of half-sleep.

She thinks of cats and Laura Hollis’ crinkly smile and her hand on that tall ginger’s bicep.

Needless to say, she doesn’t get much sleep that night.

—

Laura doesn’t get it. Carmilla had said she takes requests, so Laura gave her a request. Yet here she is in sixth period History, staring at a desk devoid of anything, let alone a cat made of notebook paper.

She looks down at the floor around her desk to see if Carmilla’s creation had fallen off or something, but she doesn’t see anything. She leans her head down and looks under the desk.

Nothing.

When she stands up straight again, Kirsch is giving her a weird look so she takes off her backpack and sits down, just as Mr. Wilcox comes in. The bell rings a few seconds later and he continues his lecture from the day before.

She tries to pay attention, she has a 4.0 GPA to maintain after all, but she can’t stop thinking about the fact that Carmilla didn’t leave her anything.

Okay, thinking might be an understatement. She’s kind of obsessing.

But Laura obsesses about most things so it doesn’t really concern her that much.

She almost didn’t even text Carmilla. For one, she wasn’t even sure Carmilla had written that note on the paper crane for her. Laura guesses she probably did, seeing as she knew Laura sat in this desk right after her.

But like, maybe she didn’t?

Still, she thought about what Danny had said about Carmilla being a – well, you know, whatever. And she just has a really hard time believing that Carmilla is as bad as Danny thinks she is. She seems fine to Laura, if not a little quiet and perhaps a little grumpy, but they are in school, so it’s not that surprising.

So yeah. She decided to text Carmilla. And okay, Carmilla never actually responded to her text, but it was past midnight. She probably was sleeping.

Maybe Carmilla isn’t in school today?

She shakes that thought off. She’s pretty sure she saw her after second period. It was for the quickest of seconds because Laura was heading into the bathroom, but like, she’s almost positive it was Carmilla.

So what the heck?

Laura sighs. No. She shouldn’t have expected anything to be waiting for her. Even though she offered, Carmilla is under no obligation do anything for her.

Laura knows this, but still. She can’t help but be a little disappointed.

Maybe Carmilla didn’t ha –

“Ms. Hollis!”

Laura snaps her head up. “Yeah?”

Mr. Wilcox is staring at her and she feels warmth rush to her cheeks. Quickly. She bites her lip.

He raises an eyebrow. “I suggest you take notes, as there will be an exam on this material next week.”

“Yeah I am.” He eyes her closed notebook sitting on her desk and she cringes. “I mean, I will. Sorry.” He nods before continuing his lecture, and she flips open her notebook to the correct page.

He has her full attention for the rest of the period.

 

Laura hates her locker. Why do they make them so tiny? Students are supposed to actually be able to fit all of their textbooks and personal belongings in them right?

She groans when her bike helmet gets stuck as she’s trying to pull it out. This happens like, every day, so she’s not surprised. That doesn’t make it any less frustrating though.

She tugs on it, cringing as the plastic makes a cracking noise as it lodges itself further into the metal of her locker.

She pulls harder, grinning as she feels the helmet free itself from the vice of her locker, but she immediately yelps as the force launches her back a few steps into the middle of the hallway. She collides hard with a moving body and feels an elbow dig into her back on impact.

“Crap. Sorry. My bad.” She turns around and is suddenly face to face with the person who has been on her mind all day.

“Watch it, cutie.”

“Carmilla?”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow at her, unamused. “The one and only.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Well I go to school here.” Carmilla casually crosses her arms and looks Laura up and down, from her blue blouse to her tan jeans to her flats and back again.

Laura blushes from the words and from Carmilla’s eyes on her, which never look away from Laura at all. “Right, yeah, of course. I just meant what are you doing here, like, in my hallway at my locker.”

“I didn’t realize this hallway belonged to you, creampuff.”

Laura blushes some more, but the corner of Carmilla’s mouth twitches, so she’s pretty sure she’s joking. At least she thinks she is?

“Well it’s not my hallway, I guess, but – ”

“I was looking for you actually.”

Laura raises her eyebrows this time. “You were?”

Carmilla rolls her eyes, which Laura notices are like, super pretty and dark. “Well I didn’t realize your locker was here, but I was hoping to run into you.” She uncrosses her arms and opens up her messenger bag, reaching her hand in for a second. She pulls something out and hands it to Laura.

It’s an origami cat made from notebook paper, and Carmilla even drew eyes and whiskers on it. It’s super adorable. Laura beams.

“This is really sweet.”

Carmilla shrugs nonchalantly. “I got bored. And anyway, I thought I’d come give it to you. It’s only polite to deliver specific orders in person.”

Laura feels herself bouncing up and down her toes like she does when she gets excited and she grins. Danny was totally wrong about Carmilla. “This is like the most thoughtful thing ever. Thank you, Carmilla.”

“I got bored,” Carmilla repeats, but Laura swears she looks pleased. “Anyway. I have to go, but, let me know if you have any other requests.”

Laura nods enthusiastically. “I definitely will.”

“Cool. And uh,” Carmilla smirks. “Good luck with that helmet.” She nods toward Laura’s locker with her chin before waving a little with her fingers and heading toward the doors to the student parking lot.

Laura watches her until she turns the corner. Then she looks down at her helmet, which has a small dent in the plastic on top, and sighs.

Great. Now she’ll have to ask her dad for a new one.

—

Carmilla likes being home alone. And just alone in general. But being home alone really does it for her. She can do her chores without her mother breathing down her neck and listen to music as loud as she wants.

Best of all, she can watch whatever the fuck she wants on TV without Will either complaining about what she’s watching, or judging her for watching something weird. Even she has guilty pleasures, so whatever.

So when she’s flipping through the channels and sees that stupid rom-com she likes flicker past, she doesn’t even hesitate to scroll back to it. John Tucker Must Die is a classic alright? Plus, there’s a super hot kiss between Brittany Snow and Sophia Bush. Like she’s gonna pass that up.

She settles back into the couch with her root beer and turns up the volume. It’s almost at the part where John makes all the guys wear thongs when she feels her phone vibrate. She squeezes it out of the tight pocket in her jeans and slides it unlocked.

Lauronica Mars (5:31pm): So I was looking up cool things you could make on the internet, and I saw an owl. Do you know how to make that? Because that would be totally amazing!!!

Carmilla rolls her eyes and is about to respond when another text comes in.

Lauronica Mars (5:32pm): If you don’t know how, then that’s also fine, obviously! Don’t feel pressured at all!! It’s so awesome you can make anything in the first place!! :)

Carmilla snorts and shoots back, yeah I can probably do that, before setting her phone down beside her on the couch.

Laura has asked her for requests every day for the past week, and Carmilla has been able to all of them easy enough. She’s never done the owl, but she’s sure it’s pretty similar to the other stuff she knows, so she’ll just look up the directions online later tonight.

She’s just getting back into the movie, and it’s at the part where Brittany Snow’s character is calling the douche man out for how much of a douche he is basically, when her phone buzzes again.

Lauronica Mars (5:40pm): Yay!!!!! :)

Carmilla snorts and sets her phone down again, trying to get back into the movie. It’s at a good part, but she’s seen this movie like, five times, and she can’t really get back into it. She keeps thinking about Laura.

Laura, who keeps texting her despite their situation being kind of awkward. Like, they aren’t friends. They only talk when Laura texts her and when Carmilla drops by her locker after school to give her whatever she’d made for her during History.

They don’t talk for very long, which is mainly her own fault, but she has to go pretty quickly after school because she has to give Will a ride to his football practice sometimes. And also she’s awkward because Laura is actually nice, and Carmilla genuinely likes talking to her, and she just doesn’t want to ruin it by staying too long and having something too sarcastic or shitty come out of her mouth on accident.

It happens all the time, and she’s perpetually grounded because of it, and whatever, people usually suck, so she doesn’t really care.

But Laura somehow doesn’t suck, and Carmilla doesn’t really get it because Laura is kind of popular in that easy way where she’s just nice and everyone seems to be her friend without really trying.

To be anybody’s friend, Carmilla would have to try a lot, and that’s just too much effort, so she just doesn’t really want to push it with Laura. Anyway, Laura stands out, and now that Carmilla has noticed her, she can’t stop noticing her. And she knows that could never end well, as her track record might point out, and Carmilla would rather just notice Laura a little and only talk to her a little than notice Laura a lot and talk to her never.

Plus, if this were a rom-com, Laura would be Brittany Snow and Carmilla would be the douche character probably, and everyone knows Brittany Snow ends up with The Other Tucker.

(She tries to imagine Laura with Will and grimaces. Maybe this analogy is flawed, but still, gross.)

Whatever. The whole school judges her anyway because she doesn’t dress like the tall ginger bitch and she kinda hates sports and never really says much and when she does, it’s usually something kinda shitty, so it’s not that surprising.

She just wonders how long it will take before Laura turns does the same.

—

“Ms. Laura!”

Laura turns around just as a very tiny human comes barreling into her legs. She sways a little from the force, but manages to not tip over, and she smiles as she ruffles the hair of the little boy hugging her knees.

“Hey bud!”

The boy (she thinks his name is Bryce, but he has a twin named Bentley so she can’t be certain) leans back and grins. He’s missing his two front teeth and Laura chuckles. Definitely Bryce.

“What are you reading us today?” Bryce grabs her hand and pulls her toward the kid’s section of the library. She sees that a bunch of kids are already sitting in the reading area.

Laura smiles at down at him and shrugs. “I haven’t decided yet. Do you have any suggestions?”

The boy shakes his head and lets go of her hand so that he can run over to where his brother is sitting in front of the reading chair. She goes up to the desk, nodding at the librarian, who smiles warmly at her, and opens the tub labeled Sunday Reading Group. She’s trying to decide on a good book when someone leans against the desk next to her.

“You know sweetheart, the kids section has an age limit, not a height limit.”

Laura looks up at the figure, smiling when she sees its Carmilla Karnstein. She rolls her eyes good-naturedly at the comment. “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

Carmilla smirks at her, and Laura feels her cheeks heat up again, which like, she really wish that wasn’t a thing. “But seriously. There’s a preteen section over there.”

Laura feels her mouth drop open and she pushes at Carmilla’s arm a little. “I am here volunteering!”

“I didn’t know Santa’s elves read to children all year ‘round. How nice.”

Laura takes a small paperback out of the bin (she vaguely recognizes one of the Magic Tree House books) and hits Carmilla on the arm with it. The librarian looks at Laura disapprovingly, which is a first, but Carmilla is laughing, and it’s the first time Laura’s ever heard her laugh and it’s kind of nice, so she doesn’t really care.

Okay she cares a little, she hates when authority figures are mad at her, but still, she made Carmilla laugh.

“Why you gotta be so rude?” Laura sing-songs and Carmilla snorts.

“Please stop.”

Laura pokes Carmilla in the shoulder. “Why are you in the kids section on a Sunday morning by the way? At least, I have a reason to be here.”

Carmilla raises her eyebrows. “You do?”

“Yes I just told you, I’m volunteering. I read here every Sunday.”

“Huh.” Carmilla grins one-sidedly and Laura scrunches her nose in confusion.

“What’s so funny?”

Carmilla crosses her arms and leans back against the counter, turning her head to look at Laura with her dark eyes. Laura feels goosebumps on her arms, but she doesn’t know why. “Nothing,” Carmilla drawls. “Just, you would volunteer.”

“Yeah,” Laura says. “Every Sunday.”

Carmilla quirks an eyebrow at her. “So you’ve said.”

“Right.” Laura hates the heat in her cheeks. Carmilla is so cool. Why is she so awkward? “So you never answered why you were here?”

Carmilla shrugs. “Just checking out some books.” She smirks. “And other things.”

Laura doesn’t know what that means, but she does like books. “Which books?”

“Nothing yet.”

She nods. “Oh, cool.”

Carmilla looks like she’s about to respond, but they’re interrupted by Bryce yelling at her. “Ms. Laura, can you read to us now?”

Laura snaps her eyes away from Carmilla’s and sees all of the children looking at her expectantly. She smiles guiltily. “I’m coming, guys!” She looks back at Carmilla. “Sorry. I’ve gotta…” She gestures at the kids.

“Have fun with that,” Carmilla grins again, and Laura finds herself grinning back.

“They’re really sweet.” Laura shrugs and grabs a Shel Silverstein book from the book tub. She doesn’t think she’s read from it in a few weeks.

Carmilla shrugs. “Lots of things are sweet, cupcake. Doesn’t make them any less bad for you.”

Laura feels her lips twist in confusion. What does that mean? “What – ”

“MS. LAURA!”

She snaps her mouth shut and holds up one finger toward the group of kids. “Sorry, I really should read to them now, before their moms hear them screaming and come after me.”

She feels a tug on her hand and looks down. She barely prevents herself from rolling her eyes as Bryce tries to pull her over to the reading area.

“I’ll talk to you later?” She throws over her shoulder, and Carmilla just grins again and waves her fingers a little in that way that she does.

Laura’s glad that children’s poetry doesn’t require much of her attention, because as she sits down to read, she keeps glancing up and seeing Carmilla leaning against the desk, watching her, arms crossed over her black shirt, boot-clad feet crossed at the ankles. It’s intimidating, but Carmilla is cool and like, gorgeous, and she maybe, possibly, was flirting with Laura a little.

Wait.

She stumbles over the words she’s reading out loud as her brain thinks the thought.

Was Carmilla flirting with her?

She snaps her eyes up again as she turns the page, but the only person at the desk is the librarian, and Carmilla is nowhere in sight.

She bites her lip and continues reading, her thoughts drifting between the words on the page and the agonizing process of replaying every interaction she’s had with Carmilla over the past three weeks.

Could Carmilla have been flirting with her?

She closes the book, as the parents of all the kids around her start to gather their kids. She purses her lips, wondering.

Then she thinks an even more absurd thought than the possibility that Carmilla was flirting with her.

Was she flirting with Carmilla?

Oh.

Crap.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Yeah, exactly, I make them for you,” Carmilla says casually, leaning against the locker next to Laura’s.
> 
> “Well, when people have talent they share it right?”
> 
> “Well maybe I don’t feel like sharing,” she responds, in a way that sounds like she’s talking about more than just some folded paper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter written by tumblr user kellyymanning. Hit us up on tumblr for updates/questions, etc. Track the tag "carmilla origami au" for all sorts of fun stuff.

“Do you think we should wake her up? Poor thing looked like a zombie earlier today. But she needs to eat…”

“God, Perr, you’re such a mom.”

“Well someone has to be the responsible one around here! And I don’t hear you offering any suggestions.”

LaFontaine shrugs before swiping a fry from Perry’s tray.

As they go to take another one, Perry swats their hand away. Before she can say anything else, Danny comes walking over to the table.

“Sorry I’m late, I-”

Perry shushes her, nodding towards Laura, who had insisted that she was just going to put her head down for a few minutes before falling asleep.

Danny mouths an “oh,” before gently setting her tray down on the table and taking a seat next to Laura.

“Isn’t this like the-”

“So?” LaF cuts her off.

Danny and Perry both shoot a look at them

“What? All I’m saying is that you and I both know that Laura does a lot for other people and sometimes she forgets to take some time for herself and, you know, actually sleep.” They shrug and steal another fry from Perry’s tray. When Laura had told them the reason why she had trouble sleeping sometimes a few weeks back when they had asked, LaF had promised they wouldn’t tell the two of them about it since they could act like overprotective parents sometimes. LaF thought that this sounded like a plausible enough excuse that Danny and Perry wouldn’t question.

“Yeah, well…” Danny picks at the food on her plate for a moment, scrunching her nose at whatever the green thing is that the Caf was trying to pass off as a vegetable. “We still need to talk about fundraising. And since this one over here,” she tilts her head towards Laura, “brought it up in the first place, don’t you think she should be awake for the conversation?”

Laura mumbles under her breath (something about a goldfish?), and Danny decides that since the actual married couple sitting across from her doesn’t seem to be proactive with the matter, she needs to be the one to do something about it.

Danny leans closer into Laura’s space. “Hey, Hollis,” she says into her ear, “you’re dreaming. Your lit paper is going to be overdue.” When that doesn’t work, she tries a more hands-on approach, sticking the tip of her finger into Laura’s nose.

“Huhwhuh.” Laura shoots up. She blinks a few times, and once she gets a hold of her surroundings, she lets out a slight groan. It would’ve been nice if she had woken up in her room instead of at the lunch table. Again. “Was that really necessary?”

“Geez, don’t bite my head off.”

“I don’t know, Danny, you were the one to wake her up,” LaF says.

She glares across the table at them.

“So what’d I miss?” Laura asks with a yawn.

“We were going to talk about fundraising, remember?” Danny says.

“Right, right. So any ideas so far?”

“Bake sale?” Perry offers.

“Overdone,” Danny says. “Besides, I don’t think anyone is allowed to sell anything food related for a while after the whole ‘salt-incident’ with the Zetas”

The faces that LaF and Perry make in response are so similar that it’s borderline freaky.

“Nothing seasonal related,” Danny says. “Those usually end up feeling too commercialized, which is just dumb.”

She turns to Laura. “Any ideas, Hollis?”

“Ca-origami?” she offers, since it was what was on her mind. She couldn’t help it if she had zoned out a bit that that her thoughts had drifted to Carmilla. But that was completely okay, she reasoned, because Laura liked there to be some sort of order in her day, and ever since her and Carmilla meeting after school had become a regular thing, she had started trying to look for her in the hallways, or getting to History a little earlier so she can say a quick “hey” and get a “hey, cutie,” in return. 

It’s totally normal for her to think about that stuff.

After all, if she wanted to be friends with Carmilla, (she wasn’t exactly sure if Carmilla considered them friends???) she kind of needed to see her more than when they met up after school, or the few times they had coincidentally been at the library at the same time.

Her train of thought is interrupted when Danny asks, “What, like paper folding?”

“Yeah, you know, like, maybe have some premade ones to sell at lunch or something, but also do commissions for certain designs.” She shrugs and leans down, sticking a hand in her backpack, blindly reaching around in one of the smaller sections. Laura remembers that she still has one of the pieces Carmilla gave her that she forgot to take out of her bag and put with the rest of her collection at home.

Once her fingers find the familiar folded shape, she pulls it out of her bag and puts it on the table in front of her. “Something like this?”

The three of them stare at her for a moment before Laf says, “Holy shi-”

“Language, honey,” Perry cuts in.

“itake mushrooms. You made that?”

“Er- not exactly, Carmilla ga-”

Danny nearly chokes on her food. “Wait. Carmilla? As in ‘doesn’t give a shit, constantly brooding, raging bi-”

Laura interjects before Danny can continue her thought. “She’s really not that bad! And I asked her to make it for me so…”

The three of them stare at her for a moment before Perry clears her throat and says, “I’m sure given the circumstances, Carmilla can be perfectly fine to…get along with – Sweetie, really, if you wanted fries, why didn’t you get some?” She takes the container of fries and puts it front of Lafontaine. “Anyway, Laura, Carmilla doesn’t seem like the type to be particularly…fond of helping in these certain kinds of situations.”

Danny is about to say something snarky in response but Perry continues.

“But it is a considerable idea, even if it isn’t exactly the most conventional,” she says with a nod. 

Before they can go any further with the conversation, the warning bell rings.

Laura is thankful for that.

//

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not? You’re always making them for me.”

It was after the last bell had rung for the day and the two of them had met up at Laura’s locker as usual. Carmilla had handed over the commission of the day, (yes they were totally commissions; her payment was getting to see Laura after over six hours of teachers talking about no one gives a shit. God, was she in deep), and she was about to leave when Laura told her about the crazy idea of her helping the dimwit squad with some dumb fundraiser for some event that she couldn’t give two fucks about.

Not even just one fuck, actually.

Laura has given up on trying to get her helmet out of her locker and is seriously considering just walking her bike home… or completely disregarding bike safety rules altogether.

“Yeah, exactly, I make them for you,” Carmilla says casually, leaning against the locker next to Laura’s.

“Well, when people have talent they share it right?”

“Well maybe I don’t feel like sharing,” she responds, in a way that sounds like she’s talking about more than just some folded paper.

Laura is more concerned with getting her helmet out of her locker than noticing the tone of Carmilla’s voice.

Carmilla sighs and starts, “tell you what.” Ever since she saw Laura in the hallway earlier today, she could tell that something was off. She wasn’t as excited about the day as she normally was. Carmilla decides she’s not going to pry though, because of her “don’t say anything to fuck – whatever this is- up” rule.

Also it’s really none of her business.

She turns her body slightly and bumps Laura’s arm, nodding toward the locker.

Laura moves out of the way and Carmilla sticks her hands inside of the locker, grabbing the helmet. “You’re at the library on Sunday, right?” she turns the helmet slightly, careful not to bang it on the side of the locker. “After your playdate or whatever I can show up and show you how to make a couple things. I mean, if you don’t have naptime or something afterwards.”

Carmilla seems to know how to get the helmet out of her locker almost effortlessly, and before she knows it, Laura has the headgear on her head, straps dangling at the sides of her face.

“I-uh…” Laura isn’t sure whether she should thank Carmilla or answer her proposition first, but Carmilla speaks before she gets a chance to decide.

“What, are the stacks not intimate enough for you? I’m sure we can f-“

“No! I mean…” Laura quickly cuts her off, preventing her from finishing whatever it was that she was going to say. Wait, Carmilla was flirting, this was flirting , right? She needed to say something. “Yes. Sunday. It’s a date.” Laura feels her cheeks grow warm and quickly adds, “not like a date date, you know, like a predetermined get together between friends kind of date.” Smooth, Hollis, super smooth.

Carmilla has an amused look on her face and says, “Whatever you say, cutie,” before she taps Laura’s helmet with her knuckles and walks off.

Sunday.

//

“Thanks, Ms. Laura!” the last kid says with a wave before their mom pulls them away from the reading area.

Laura waves back and says a cheery, “see you next week!”

She jumps when she hears a low “Hey, Ms. librarian” in her ear. She turns to see Carmilla smirking at her.

“Jeez, Carm, don’t scare me like that,” she says, swatting her on the arm. “And I’ve told you, I’m just a volunteer.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, Miss ‘volunteers for everything and drags other people into doing it too…”

“Hey, I nev-”

“Relax, cutie, I’m messing with you. Even though I still think the whole fundraising thing is dumb,” she checks her nails for a moment, as if to show that even talking about it bored her, and looks up when she finishes, “I still offered to help.”

“Right. Right. So um, when did you get here, anyway?”

“Oh you know, right around the part where you started making monkey noises. Tell George I said ‘hey’ the next time you see him, by the way.”

“Hey, I take storytime very seriously!” she replies with a pout.

Laura’s pout should be illegal. Pretty much everything about her should be illegal, especially the tug Laura seems to have that draws everyone else in, including her.

Maybe that’s why Carmilla can’t seem to pull away.

“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious, cupcake.”

She looks around the room for a moment; the walls are much too bright for her taste, and the books don’t smell like they should.

“Well, we should probably go somewhere a bit more…private,” she says, watching Laura’s face carefully. Nope. Nothing.

“You know, wouldn’t want to get the other tiny humans jealous that I’m keeping you all to myself for a while,” she adds, hoping Laura can take a hint.

Or you know, not, since Laura’s going off on something about how she needs to get her stuff from ‘x’ location and how ‘y’ location is the best section to sit in because those books don’t get taken out a lot, and their voices wouldn’t travel enough to bother the other patrons, and a lot of other information that she really didn’t need to hear.

Carmilla’s noticed that Laura tends to ramble a lot. Like, all the time, actually. And for some reason it’s completely adorable and not at all infuriating.

Yeah, Laura Hollis should really be illegal.

//

“I don’t think I’m doing this right,” Laura says, scrunching up her nose a bit before holding up the folded paper to show Carmilla.

Carmilla shakes her head and lets out a slight laugh. “No, not quite, cutie. But it’s coming along better than the ones you did earlier,” she says, nodding towards the small pile of Laura’s previous attempts.

“Remember,” she leans into Laura’s space and grabs her hand, using Laura’s finger to point. “These two fold in, this goes over, then you flip it over and do the same on the other side.” She lets go of Laura’s finger and her fingertips brush against Laura’s hand as she retracted her own.

There had been a lot of that, Carmilla being hands on with her teaching approach. Not that Laura minded of course. It was just a bit distracting when she could feel Carmilla’s breath on her neck, and the general physical contact gave her butterflies. Maybe she shouldn’t be getting distracted so easily.

But she wasn’t exactly complaining either.

“So when did you get into doing origami, anyway?” Laura asks, genuinely curious since it seems like Carmilla knows enough to have been doing it for a while.

It’s kind of a loaded question for Carmilla, since the “when” is just as important as the “why.” She begins with, “Back when I was a very young child in 1690-“

She catches the eyebrow raise from Laura in her direction and sighs.

“Fine.” Instead of continuing right away, she reaches forward to grab another piece of paper and starts to carefully fold it.

“You know how when you’re little, you make wishes on everything you can get your hands on? You know, pennies you’ve thrown into water fountains, shooting stars, dandelions, things like that.”

She glances up and sees Laura nod, so she continues.

“They always left me disappointed,” just like people normally do, she thinks.

She frowns at the paper in front of her, flips it over a few times, then starts again.

“There’s uh, this Japanese legend about paper cranes, it says anyone who can make a thousand will get a wish. There are some variations that say you’ll get a long life, or recover from some illness or injury. Either way, I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

She half shrugs. Carmilla isn’t used to being so open, but then again nobody had ever really given her the chance. And it wasn’t like Laura had asked for her life story or anything, just why she started doing origami. But there was something about Laura that made her want to tell her everything, and even more. There was a familiarity about her, almost as if they knew each other in a different lifetime.

She wasn’t exactly ready for a therapy session either.

She needed to choose her words carefully, knowing fully well that what she didn’t say was just as important as what she did.

Carmilla continues folding the paper in front of her, and it is evident that she is making another crane.

“People are a lot like paper, you know.”

Before Laura can ask how, she continues.

“People are fragile. They’re easily damaged, torn, destroyed. They’re easy to come by, and they’re easy to throw away or forget about.” She pauses, running her finger along the last completed fold for probably the fifteenth time.

She clears her throat. “When you fold paper, you aren’t taking away from what it is, you just change the way it looks and turn it into something beautiful. I spent… God knows how long making paper cranes, and of course nothing happened.” She still hadn’t looked at Laura again. It was easier to talk this way.

“But then I did some thinking, and I realized that maybe I didn’t have to wish for things to change,” she finishes the last of the folds, “I just had to change my perspective a bit and see that with the right folds,” she pauses for a moment to gently blow into the hole at the bottom of the crane, giving it some volume, “things could be somewhat decent.”

She carefully places the crane on the table in front of Laura, finally daring to look at her. “I think that’s enough story time for one day, yeah?”

Laura nods and takes a moment to appreciate the crane in front of her. She still can’t comprehend how Carmilla can take something as simple as a piece of paper and put so much emotion into it to turn it into something beautiful. She digests everything that Carmilla had just said, before finally saying, “Stars aren’t always so bad. They give light in the dark and they aren’t blinding.”

Carmilla looks at her, not sure what prompted her to say that. She hadn’t said that stars were bad, in fact she often spent restless nights staring up at them, questioning her existence, she had just said they never worked for wishes. But there’s something about the way Laura says it, like there are so many details at the tip of her tongue that she wants to come out, but the taste is sour and she just swallows it down because it seems like that would just be easier.

“Do-“

She’s cut off by the buzz of Laura’s phone, which Laura promptly picks up off the table.

“It’s my dad,” Laura says.

Carmilla doesn’t need an explanation from her.

“He’ll be here in a few minutes to pick me up.”

Oh.

Laura slides her phone into her pocket and starts gathering up all of the cranes she had made and carefully putting them into her bag.

“Oh! I almost forgot.” She takes something out of her bag and presses it into Carmilla’s hand. “Y’know, for your trouble.”

Carmilla looks down at the creation in her hand, it’s a bright yellow flower made from duct tape that clearly took more effort to make than any of origami she had given Laura.

Before she has a chance to respond, Laura has already thrown a “see you tomorrow!” over her shoulder as she leaves.

Carmilla looks back down at the flower in her hand, turning it over a few times before making a mental note to find a ruler and some scissors when she gets home.

//

That night Laura takes the crane Carmilla made her and puts it next to her pillow before she goes to sleep. It wasn’t exactly a thousand, but it would do.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla’s probably goingto die at a young age.
> 
> Cause of death: Laura Hollis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter written by capnclarke. Hit me and kellyymanning up on tumblr with questions/comments/concerns/etc!

Laura’s eyes scan the hallway uncertainly. She looks down at her phone worriedly every few seconds as the school continues to empty.

Carmilla is usually here by now…

She might not worry that much (okay that’s a lie, she’s a notorious worrier), but she already saw Carmilla at school today, so it’s not like she’s home sick. And Carmilla ALWAYS meets Laura at her locker.

Maybe Carmilla’s mad at her…

The thought makes Laura’s stomach twist with sadness. She bites her lip and turns her head to look both ways down the hallway to see if Carmilla is coming. The hallway is basically empty now and Laura’s dad will start to worry if she gets home late. She slumps her shoulders, resigned to the fact that Carmilla isn’t coming.

She doesn’t know what she’d expected. She kind of thought they were friends, but she guesses they might not be. They never hang out anywhere outside of school or at the library sometimes, and sure, they text a lot and Carmilla always says hi to her in the hall and meets her at her locker after school and you know, makes her origami every day and stuff, but Laura guesses that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

She hoists her backpack further on her back and starts to walk down the hall, thinking about how she really needs to stop getting her hopes up all the time because it’s really starting to –

“Hey, cupcake, wait up!”

Laura whips around at the voice, her lips pulling up in a huge smile as Carmilla jogs to catch up with her. Which like, weird. Carmilla doesn’t jog anywhere. She doesn’t even hurry as far as Laura can tell. She leisurely struts.

She lets out a small laugh as Carmilla finally reaches her, slightly out of breath.

“Were you leaving?” She manages to puff out.

Laura lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“Sorry.” Carmilla inhales heavily, trying to catch her breath. “Wallace made me stay after to talk about my trigonometry grade.”

Laura quirks her eyebrows worriedly. “Are you failing?”

“What?” Carmilla smirks as they start walking toward the front door of the school. “No, it’s really good and he wants me to tutor some people.”

“Oh,” Laura nods. “Are you going to do it?”

Carmilla side-eyes her, and Laura feels her stomach flip-flop. “Probably not. I’m not interested in giving myself in aneurism because of the stupidity of people who can’t open a textbook.”

Laura pouts, but can’t help but smile a little fondly. “Carm, that’s mean.”

“Oh, please, it’s fine.” She sees Carmilla roll her eyes at the look on her face. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“What if it was me who needed tutoring?” Laura asks.

Carmilla’s jaw tightens. “I’d let you fail, obviously.”

Laura’s mouth falls open in shock. “Carm!” Carmilla just shrugs, but there’s a tiny smile playing at the corner of her lips. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“No,” Carmilla says, and it sounds tight and resigned. “I probably wouldn’t.”

Carmilla pushes open the door to the school, squinting at the bright sunlight. Laura admires the way it gets caught in her hair like starlight. They stop by the bike rack next to Laura’s purple bike, one of only two left in the rack.

She starts to worry that her dad might call her soon in a panic because she isn’t home yet, but Carmilla is staring at with her dark eyes, attentive and soft, and Laura can’t find it in her to care. At least not that much.

“What?” Laura says as Carmilla quirks an eyebrow.

Carmilla doesn’t say anything immediately, just tilts her head to the side as she looks at her. Laura swallows thickly.

“Nothing,” Carmilla murmurs eventually. “You just look… you doing okay, cutie?”

Laura nods, because she’s like, totally fine. She’s still having trouble sleeping, but that isn’t anything new. She’s just a little tired. “Yeah, I’m great!”

Carmilla doesn’t break eye contact for another moment and it unsettles Laura a little bit. Carmilla has really pretty eyes, like dark chocolate and warmth and hugs or something.

“Okay,” Carmilla finally says. “Well, I have something for you.”

Laura watches as she reaches into the pocket of her leather jacket, her long hair falling over her shoulder prettily. Laura wonders why she never noticed how pretty Carmilla is before.

Well, she noticed. But like, in an offhand kind of way. Now, she like, really notices, as the sunlight dances in her hair and is absorbed into her pale cheeks, a slight red coloring them.

She’s just really pretty.

“Here,” Carmilla says, holding out her hand. Laura opens hers and their fingers touch as Carmilla places something in her palm. Laura notices Carmilla’s fingers are really cold. And soft.

She pulls her hand up closer to her face, smiling a little at the tiny paper star. Something deep within her chest flutters, reverberating like a gong and sinking lower into her stomach.

“Carm…” She looks up, her throat feeling dry for a reason she can’t really explain. “This is really sweet.”

Carmilla shrugs nonchalantly, but Laura swears she blushes. Could be the sunlight, though. Maybe Carmilla should invest in some sunscreen.

“Well, you said you like stars, right?” Carmilla asks with a quirk of her eyebrows.

Laura nods, looking back down at the tiny star, delicate and beautiful and just, like, perfect. In a weird way, it reminds her of Carmilla. “Yeah.” She looks back up and before she loses her courage, wraps her arms tightly around Carmilla’s neck in a hug, careful not to crush the star.

Carmilla immediately stiffens, a loud exhale hitting the side of Laura’s head, but Laura just tightens her grip and Carmilla softens. She brings her arms around Laura’s waist and Laura smiles against her neck.

Carmilla is soft and it’s probably the best hug Laura’s ever had.

Also Carmilla smells amazing, but that’s just a bonus.

Laura pulls away first, shooting another smile at Carmilla. Carmilla returns it, and Laura thinks she lied before because now she is REALLY noticing how pretty Carmilla is.

Like, just. Whoa.

“Thanks,” she manages to say, and Carmilla clears her throat.

“Yeah, sure.”

Laura’s phone pings with a text, and she looks down at it, unsurprised that it’s her dad wondering where she is. She texts him back really quick that she’s okay and is about to come home from school.

“I gotta go,” she says as she flips her phone closed with a loud thwack. She really needs to get a smart phone. “My dad will probably send out a search party if I’m not home soon.”

Carmilla bites her lip, and lifts an eyebrow playfully. “Sounds a little a dramatic.”

Laura shrugs. “I’m all he’s got, you know?”

Carmilla’s eyes widen, and Laura guesses maybe she didn’t know, but her face quickly morphs back into its standard look of vacant apathy. “Well, he’s lucky.”

“Uh.” Laura blushes and Carmilla looks embarrassed, which, if Laura’s being honest, gives her a secret pleasure. Embarrassed Carmilla is adorable. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Carmilla mutters, avoiding Laura’s eyes. “Whatever.”

Laura unlocks her bike from the rack, looking over her shoulder as she wheels it out and swings her leg over. “See you tomorrow?”

Carmilla nods, looking at Laura on her bike with a pained expression. Laura doesn’t get it, but she really has to get home before her dad starts to freak out.

“Bye, Carm.”

“Later, cutie.” Carmilla waggles her fingers in a small wave and Laura pushes down on the pedal, speeding down the bike lane as quickly as she can.

She really wasn’t kidding about her dad sending out a search party.

//

“Wait, Laura, can you show us that fold again?” LaF looks down at the paper in Laura’s hands and holds up their own, comparing the two. “I don’t think I’m doing this right.”

Laura shakes her head at LaF’s paper crane. “No, see you have to fold it the other way first.”

“Oh.” LaF stares at their crane like it’s rocket science. Laura thinks LaF is probably more skilled at actual rocket science than at origami.

“Ugh,” Danny groans from across the table. “I give up.” She slides her paper away from her and puts her chin in her hand. “Can we pick a different idea? We suck at this, shortstack.”

Laura opens her mouth to reply, but Perry interrupts her. “Ooh, look Laura, I did it!”

It’s their Wednesday lunch period and Laura was supposed to be teaching them how to make paper cranes for the fundraiser, but apparently, only Perry seems to understand. It’s lucky Laura has a lot of patience; she guesses that if Carmilla was the one teaching them, she’d have given up after two minutes.

“Yeah, that’s really awesome, Perr.” Laura smiles encouragingly. “Come on, guys, try again, it’s really not that hard. Just copy what I do!”

LaF and Danny sigh and grab a new piece of paper. 

“You know, sweetie,” Perry begins as she finishes up another crane. “I’ve been doing some research and you can make just about anything by folding paper into triangles and building a sculpture! I saw this adorable one of that superhero LaFontaine likes, Tin Man, and – ”

“It’s Iron Man, Perr,” LaF interjects with a fond eye roll.

“Yes, yes, him,” Perry continues. “It might be more popular for the fundraiser, and Spring Break is just around the corner, we don’t have much time to learn how to make all of these different designs.”

Laura purses her lips in thought, sighing as LaF crumples another failed crane between their fingers. “Yeah, maybe.”

“That could be cool,” Danny says, her nose scrunching as she also botches another crane. Laura doesn’t get it. It’s really not that hard.

Maybe Carmilla is just a better teacher than her.

“Well, we can just consider it,” Perry shrugs. “I’ll email you the link, Laura. You can ask Carmilla about it.”

Across the table, Danny scowls, and Laura feels herself getting angry. Danny doesn’t even know Carmilla. She thinks about the two paper stars she found in her jacket pocket yesterday and the one she discovered in her locker this morning. They made her smile because Carmilla is so sweet, taking time to make the stars, even if she’s just doing it while she’s bored in class.

And how did she even get that one into Laura’s locker?

She’s just really nice and she gets why Danny might think she’s not at first because Carmilla is kind of quiet and her confidence can come off as kind of… ugh, bitchy (Laura really hates that word), especially when she’s being sarcastic, but Laura finds it funny and really endearing actually.

She’s about to tell Danny all of these things, but the warning bell rings and she can’t be late to class.

“Okay,” she says as the four of them pack up their stuff. “I’ll ask her about it when I see her after school.”

She doesn’t miss the looks of disbelief her friends shoot at her, but she ignores them.

She really can’t be late to class.

//

Laura’s rummaging in her locker when Carmilla slides up next to her after school. She doesn’t see Carmilla at first, so she leans her back against the lockers nonchalantly.

“Hey,” she says.

Laura jumps, startled, her head whipping to look at Carmilla. “You have to stop doing that, Carm. How do you always sneak up on me so quietly? You’re like a cat or something.”

Carmilla just shrugs, her shoulders moving against the metal of the lockers, and she hates the feeling, she hates it so much, but she’s not in middle school anymore and it’s just Laura right there so she convinces herself she doesn’t care.

“I don’t know, cutie, maybe you should pay more attention.” Carmilla watches as Laura goes back to digging in her locker.

“Oh, trust me, I pay a lot of attention to you.” Laura seems to realize how that sounds and grins at Carmilla meekly. “I mean. I pay attention to everything. And if that happens to include you, then that’s great. I mean a lot of things are great. I just. Okay, I’m just going to stop talking now.”

Carmilla examines her nails to hide her smirk, and she can’t help but think for the billionth time that Laura Hollis should be illegal because sometimes she’s so cute that Carmilla thinks she might die.

From her cute smile to the way she rides her bike, wearing that infuriatingly dorky and adorable helmet.

“Whatever you say, cupcake.” Carmilla watches as Laura tries to pull said bike helmet from her locker and miserably fails, as she does almost every day.

“Dang it,” Laura groans. “Carm, can you do your magic on this?”

Carmilla just rolls her eyes as Laura moves out of the way. She sticks her arms in the locker, grabbing the helmet and expertly twisting it to the perfect angle. She pulls it out with ease and rests it on Laura’s head.

“Thanks,” Laura says, the straps of the helmet swinging around her face. It’s so cute that Carmilla is convinced she might die on the spot. She really needs to get it together.

She is such a useless lesbian sometimes.

“No problem,” she manages to get out, mentally berating herself for being so weak when it comes to tiny dorks.

“How are you so good at that anyway?” Laura asks as she closes her locker gently and they move toward the school doors.

Laura is smiling and Carmilla promised herself she wouldn’t be the one to ruin this, to make that smile disappear. Not if she can help it. So she just shrugs and brushes it off. “Natural talent, I guess.”

Laura nods like this makes sense for some reason Carmilla can’t fathom, and pushes the door open. It’s a little chillier today. Carmilla thinks it might rain.

“So, hey, I have a question for you,” Laura says, leading them over to the bike rack.

“Can’t say I’ll have an answer, creampuff, but okay,” Carmilla drawls, and her tone draws an exasperated huff from Laura, which she finds cute.

She finds everything about Laura cute, but she’s still trying to pretend she doesn’t. At least out loud, if not to herself.

“So, Perry was looking online and found that you can make these cool origami sculptures by folding triangles, so we think we might do that for the fundraiser instead because it’s probably a lot easier. I mean, today at lunch, Danny and LaF were really struggling to do the crane, even though I showed them how to fold it exactly like you taught me, but they still weren’t getting it so I’m just not sure we’re going to do that anymore.”

Laura inhales sharply, and Carmilla guess she didn’t really breathe at all through that explanation. Carmilla quirks an eyebrow. “Still waiting for the question.”

“Well,” Laura says, turning to face Carmilla head-on. “Do you want to come over to my house on Saturday and either teach me how to do that, or if you don’t know, maybe we can learn together?”

She looks at Carmilla hopefully, and Carmilla bites her lip to keep from smiling. Laura continues as if Carmilla needed more convincing, which if she’s being honest, she didn’t really.

“I mean, we are friends right? We can hang out somewhere other than school or the library. And I know my dad seems a little uptight and crazy, but I swear he’s really nice and kind of a dork actually, I’m sure he’ll love you.” Laura bounces a little on her toes and stares at her so intensely that Carmilla is sure she wouldn’t take no for an answer even if Carmilla had wanted to decline.

Which, really, she’s losing any power she had to say no to anything when it comes to Laura Hollis. “Alright, then,” she says, and Laura opens her mouth as if to argue with her, but then snaps it shut when she realizes what Carmilla said.

“Oh, you want to come over?” Laura asks, uncertainly.

Carmilla rolls her eyes. “Well, it didn’t seem like you were going to give me the chance to say no.”

Laura’s eyes widen. “What? Of course I was going to. You don’t have to come over if you don’t want to and I totally underst – ”

“Relax, cutie,” Carmilla interjects before Laura passes out trying to explain herself. “I’m just messin’ with you.”

Laura scrunches her nose before she breaks out into a grin. “Okay. So you wanna come over then?”

Carmilla shrugs a shoulder. “I mean, if only to meet the person who made you into the dweeb you are today.”

“Okay,” Laura says, her smile spreading wider. “You know, Carm, you don’t have to pretend you don’t want to hang out with me.”

Carmilla scowls at the look on Laura’s face. It’s almost as if Laura knows how cute she is. Laura is so… infuriating sometimes. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Awesome,” Laura says knowingly. “Well, it’s a date then.”

Carmilla nods helplessly. “Right.”

Laura unlocks her bike from the rack and swings her leg over the seat. “See you tomorrow!” She waves over her shoulder and Carmilla watches her ride away, her tiny legs pedaling furiously.

So yeah, Carmilla’s probably going to die at a young age.

Cause of death: Laura Hollis.

//

Carmilla’s lying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, and thinking about Laura Hollis.

It’s embarrassing how much she thinks about Laura, but she’s alone and in her room, so whatever. Shoot her for thinking.

She’s got her feet flat against the wall and her hair splayed behind her and she’s listening to her music too loud. Will has already banged his fist against their shared wall twice telling her to shut up, but their mom’s not home so she doesn’t care.

Her phone vibrates on her stomach, and she holds it up, careful not to drop it on her face.

Lauronica Mars (5:57pm): Did you do that study guide for Mr. Wilcox’s class?

Carmilla purses her lips, texting back uh, no…, and sets her phone back on her stomach. She’s not too worried about the exam on Friday. It’s just History and Wilcox always makes his test all common sense. There are rarely even date-specific questions on them.

They’re totally easy.

Lauronica Mars (6:01pm): Carm!! You need to study!!!! I don’t want you to fail.

She smiles, typing out, I’ll be fine, but before she can send it, her phone rings in her hand. It’s her mom. She reaches over and turns her stereo down.

Carmilla holds the phone up to her ear. “Hello?” She hears how stiff her voice sounds, but whatever.

“Carmilla? It’s your mother.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I have caller ID.”

She hears her mom sigh, clearly fed up with her already. “I’m going to be home late tonight.”

Carmilla grits her teeth, because seriously, what else is new? “Okay,” she says.

“Can you get Will dinner?” She hears rustling in the background and wonders if her mom’s still at work.

“Sure,” Carmilla drawls. “I can tuck him in and give him his pacifier, too, but I charge extra for changing diapers.”

“Drop the attitude, Carmilla,” her mom’s voice is clipped and Carmilla bites her tongue, but it’s not like she’s going to get in trouble. “Please just make sure your brother has dinner.”

Carmilla scowls. “Fine.”

“Did you do your chores?”

“Yes, Mother,” she huffs out. She didn’t, but she can do them later.

“Alright.” Her mom sighs again. “Stay out of trouble. I love you.”

Carmilla hangs up without saying it back because whatever. Her mom will get over it. Her message screen pops back up, her unsent message still sitting in the text box.

She deletes it immediately and shoots off a text before going to make her brother a frozen pizza.

//

Laura’s phone pings with a text message and she looks up from Wilcox’s study guide because it’s probably Carmilla telling her she’s not going to fail or something even more Carmilla-y.

Carm (6:07pm): Yeah. You want to hang out and study or something?

Laura almost drops her phone.

Then she grins. She knew Carmilla wanted to hang out with her. She pushes off her bed and out of her room, bounding down the stairs to where her dad is sitting in the family room watching some baseball game on TV.

“Hey, Dad, can my friend come over and study?” She bounces on her toes hopefully and her dad darts his eyes away from the TV to look at her.

“I suppose so,” he says, rubbing a hand over his beard. “Wait, it’s not that Brody boy is it?”

Laura rolls her eyes, thinking back to when Kirsch had to come over to work on a group project once. “No, Dad. You’ll like her. Carm is really nice.”

He nods. “Okay, I guess that’s fine. She won’t be staying too late, will she? You have school tomorrow.”

Laura tries not to vibrate too excitedly. “No, I’ll be in bed by an appropriate time, don’t worry.”

“Sounds good.” He smiles kindly at her, but his eyes are already back on the TV. She’s not surprised. He’s been kind of out of it ever since her mom died. Or he just really started liking baseball. She doesn’t really think it’s the second one.

She runs back up to her room, texting Carmilla that she can hang out and her address. It only takes fifteen minutes before her phone pings again.

Carm (6:36pm): I’m outside.

Laura peeks out her window and sees Carmilla’s black Honda parked in the street. She hurries out of her room and down the stairs, sliding in her socks on the hardwood hallway floor. She yanks on the door handle and pulls the door open, a smile immediately breaking across her face at the sight of Carmilla.

“Carm,” she says, and Carmilla smiles softly.

“Hey, cupcake.” Carmilla’s changed out of her leather pants into a pair of black jeans and a gray sweater. Laura thinks she looks softer somehow. Carmilla quirks an eyebrow. “You just going to stand there staring, or you going to let me in?”

Laura shakes her head, moving aside so Carmilla can come in. “Right, right, sorry. I just wasn’t sure you existed outside of school and the library,” she jokes.

Carmilla rolls her eyes. “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

“Dad!” Laura calls. “Carmilla is here and we’re going up to my room!”

“Okay! Have fun!” Her dad yells back.

Carmilla glances at her. “What, I don’t get to meet your dad?”

Laura shrugs. “You can meet him later. He’s not that exciting, trust me.” Laura’s just eager to hang out with Carmilla. At her house. In her room.

Just, like. Wow.

“Come on,” Laura says, grabbing Carmilla’s hand and leading her up the stairs. She’s not one hundred percent sure, but she thinks Carmilla’s grip tightens around her hand. Laura lets go when they get to her room.

Carmilla looks around as Laura grabs her study guide. Laura watches as she goes to her wall of pictures, staring at one of her, Danny, and LaF at Danny’s birthday last year. Laura loves that picture because LaF has cake in their hair and Danny’s trying to wipe frosting off her face because they’d thrown cake at each other.

Carmilla looks carefully at all her pictures and Laura freezes when she gets to the one of her and her mom. Carmilla leans closer to it, her eyes moving slowly over their faces, and Laura doesn’t know if she should say something or not.

Carmilla leans back and looks at her, and Laura thinks she’s going to ask about her mom, which would be okay, but might make her a little sad and it just never stops being awkward when you tell people your mom died.

“I like your room,” Carmilla says instead. “It’s very… you.” She jerks her head toward Laura’s Doctor Who poster and Laura smiles.

“Thanks.”

Carmilla moves to sit next to her on the bed, setting her messenger back on the floor. She pulls her legs up, crossing them and draping her arms over them. “So, you really think Wilcox’s test is going to be hard?”

Laura shrugs. She hasn’t been paying as much attention lately. “Maybe a little bit. Don’t you?”

“Nah,” Carmilla smirks. “Not enough to be studying two nights in advance.”

“I like to be prepared,” Laura pouts.

Carmilla grabs the study guide from Laura’s lap and scans it with her eyes. “Who was the patriot’s biggest ally and key to helping them win the war?”

“France,” Laura says immediately and Carmilla quirks an eyebrow at her. “Well, okay, that one was easy. Ask another.”

“Okay.” Carmilla glances back down at the study guide. “An innovative weapon used during the war included a long sword attached to a rifle, known as a….”

Laura rolls her eyes. “A bayonet. Okay fine, maybe I’m prepared.”

Carmilla grins at her and hands her back the study guide. She puts it in her binder so she can study tomorrow night, just in case.

“Well,” Carmilla says seriously. “I think that was a very productive study session.”

Laura snorts. “Shut up.” Carmilla laughs, like actually laughs, and a warm happiness spreads through Laura at the sound. “You want to watch a movie or something?”

“As long as it’s not Dora the Explorer,” Carmilla mutters dryly.

Laura pretends to be offended by that. “I’ll have you know, Carmilla, Dora is a very useful educational tool.” Carmilla looks at her doubtfully and Laura grins, poking her in the side with her foot. “Gotcha.”

“Ugh, get those away from me,” Carmilla says, swatting at Laura’s sock-clad toes.

“Why are you ticklish or something?” Laura grins devilishly.

Carmilla’s eyes widen comically. “No. I just. Feet.”

Laura pokes Carmilla’s side again and she flinches away with a panicked laugh. “No, stop it.” She glares at Laura, her face turning a light shade of pink.

“Okay, okay.” Laura holds up her hands in surrender and hops off the bed. She goes to her shelf where she keeps her books and DVDs. “How about… Bring it On?”

She looks over shoulder at Carmilla, who shrugs. “Never seen it.”

“What!” Laura’s mouth falls open. “Okay, we definitely have to watch it then. You’ll love it, don’t worry.”

Laura puts the movie in the DVD player and turns her small TV on. She flops back down on her bed, her head resting against the backboard. When Carmilla doesn’t move, she grabs her hand and pulls her next to her. Carmilla keeps hold of it and starts to thumb wrestle her.

Laura loses five times before she cups her other hand on top of Carmilla’s thumb. “Carm, you’re gonna miss the beginning, which is very important because you see Torrence dreaming and it’s sort of this recurring thing, especially if you watch the sequels.”

“Wow,” Carmilla says, her head thumping back against the wood of Laura’s headboard. She pulls her hand back. “Spoilers.”

Laura nudges Carmilla with her elbow. “Just pay attention.”

“Alright, alright.” Carmilla smiles softly at her before turning her attention to the screen.

Carmilla adds sarcastic commentary to the movie here and there, but Laura doesn’t mind. She watches Carmilla out of the corner of her eye, still surprised at the fact that Carmilla Karnstein is watching Bring it On with her in her room on a Wednesday night.

It’s just weird because Carmilla is so cool and like, gorgeous, and Laura is so awkward, and she can’t believe that she’s even on someone like Carmilla’s radar, let alone her friend.

Laura is pretty sure they’re friends now.

Carmilla lets out a yawn as the movie ends, glancing down at her phone. “I should probably go,” she says. “It’s getting kind of late.”

Laura pouts, but nods. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

Carmilla quirks an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, why wouldn’t you?”

“Just making sure.” Laura smiles and stands up as Carmilla gets up off the bed. She wraps her arms around Carmilla’s neck, squeezing tightly. She can feel Carmilla’s nose in her hair and her stomach does the flip-floppy gong thing again.

“Hey,” Carmilla says as they pull back. “Are those…?”

Laura follows her gaze, her eyes landing on her wall with all of Carmilla’s origami creations on them. “Oh, yeah.” Laura shrugs. “I like them. They’re like art, Carm, they should be hung up.”

Carmilla just stares at her, a weird look on her face that Laura can’t place. “You just keep surprising me, don’t you, cutie.”

Laura feels a smile pull at her cheeks. “I guess so? Is that a good thing?”

“Yeah,” Carmilla nods. “It’s a good thing.” She shakes her head and picks up her messenger bag. Laura walks her down the stairs and to the door.

“I guess my dad went to bed,” she says, noticing the silence coming from the living room. “You can meet him on Saturday. You’re still coming on Saturday, right?”

“The ginger squad won’t be there, will they?”

Laura rolls her eyes at the nickname for her friends. “No, just us.”

This seems to satisfy Carmilla. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

“Okay.” Laura smiles softly, meeting Carmilla’s eyes. They look extra warm under the bad lighting in her hallway. “See you tomorrow, Carm.”

Carmilla waves at her as she leaves and Laura closes the door behind her. Then she heads back up to her room and gets ready for bed.

For the first time all week, she sleeps deeply and without dreaming.

//

“So, this is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be,” Laura says from next to her as she folds another triangle. “Do you think this is how they make fortune cookies?”

Carmilla snorts. “Fortune cookies are baked so probably not.”

They’ve been folding triangles for a few hours, trying to learn to make the 3D sculptures Laura’s friends told her about, and they’re pretty easy, as Carmilla expected. Laura is becoming a lot better at origami, too.

The garage door opens and Carmilla snaps her head over to look at the man coming into the house. She assumes it’s Laura’s dad. Laura said he’d been at the gym or something.

“Hey, Dad, look at these things I’m learning to make.” Laura holds up the triangle toward her dad and Carmilla sits there awkwardly, unsure if she should introduce herself. She hasn’t always been the greatest with parents. Elle’s mom didn’t really like her much.

Laura’s dad looks at the triangle, his beard wrinkling as his lips thin in confusion. “What is it?”

“A triangle,” Laura says as if it’s the coolest thing ever. Carmilla melts a little. “We’re going to put them together to make 3D sculptures.

“Oh,” Laura’s dad nods like this makes sense, but Carmilla can tell he doesn’t get it all. She thinks it’s nice he at least pretends. “That’s great, kiddo.”

“Oh!” Laura starts. “By the way. Dad, this is Carmilla.”

Laura’s dad smiles warmly at her and offers her his hand. She shakes it, noticing the rough callouses on his palms. “Nice to meet you, Carmilla.”

Carmilla thinks he has the same eyes as Laura, open and inviting, but maybe a little less bright. “Nice to meet you, too. Thanks for having me over.”

“Anytime.” He looks over at Laura. “Hey, sport, make sure you’re offering snacks and drinks, okay?”

Laura rolls her eyes. “I did, Dad, don’t worry.”

“Okay, okay.” He laughs, a deep grumble of a chuckle, and gestures out of the kitchen. “I’m going to go shower and go to bed, Laura, okay?”

Laura nods, her eyes back on the triangles. “Okay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Carmilla says, trying to be polite. Laura’s dad seems nice.

“Nice meeting you, again.” He nods at them then heads up out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

Laura flicks a triangle at her and Carmilla huffs as it hits her in the nose. “Hey,” Laura says.

“Hey?” Carmilla raises an eyebrow across the table.

“So I was thinking…” Laura begins and Carmilla represses a smile. This should be good. “Since tomorrow is Sunday, and I always happen to coincidentally run into you at the library on Sundays, and it’s just down the street from my house and you’re already here… you should sleepover. I mean, if you want to.”

Laura bites her lip nervously as she rambles and Carmilla stares for a second. “Umm,” she says uncertainly. “Is it okay with your dad?”

“Yeah,” Laura nods. “I kinda already told him you were spending the night, actually.” She blushes a little and yeah, Carmilla is still anticipating an early death. Any day now probably.

“You did, huh?” Carmilla quirks an eyebrow in Laura’s direction, loving the way she shifts in her seat embarrassedly.

“I mean, I asked,” Laura says. “Just in case,” she adds as an afterthought.

Carmilla shakes her head. “Okay.”

Laura grins. “Okay?”

“Yeah, why not. I mean it is closer to the library.” Carmilla grins as Laura rolls her eyes.

“Shut up.” Laura throws another triangle at her, but misses.

Carmilla just laughs and shoots off a text to her mom, telling her she’s spending the night at a friend’s house. She probably won’t even read it until tomorrow.

They clean up the mess they made with all the paper. Laura collects the completed triangles in a plastic bag and stows them in her backpack for safekeeping. She leads Carmilla up the stairs to her room. Laura lends her a shirt and some pajama bottoms and while Laura brushes her teeth, Carmilla stares at the pictures on Laura’s wall again.

She feels a sad pang in her stomach, wishing she was among the faces staring back at her. Maybe she will be someday. Laura had said they were friends, right?

She looks at the picture of Laura and a woman she assumes is Laura’s mom. She wonders what happened to her.

Carmilla moves away from the pictures just as Laura comes back into the room. She’s wearing red and black checkered pajama pants and a tank top, her hair in a loose ponytail over her shoulder.

She’s so cute Carmilla thinks she might pass out.

Fuck she is so screwed.

“Okay,” Laura says, hopping up onto her bed. “Ready for bed?”

Carmilla nods, but now she’s kind of thinking this is a really bad idea. She can barely make it through a conversation with Laura. How is she going to survive sleeping next to her.

Either way, she resigns herself to not get much sleep tonight and crawls into bed beside Laura. Laura turns off her bedside lamp, sending them into darkness.

Carmilla settles into her pillow and feels Laura’s leg against her own under the covers. She yawns, surprised at how tired she suddenly feels.

“I’m glad we’re friends, Carm.” Laura’s soft voice floats into the darkness above her head and Carmilla turns to look at her, but all she sees is a vague Laura-sized outline.

“Yeah,” she says. “Me too.”

Laura grabs her hand, giving it a squeeze. Their joined hands fall to the mattress between them, clasped and warm.

Carmilla drifts off to sleep soon after that, a smile on her face and her fingers intertwined with Laura’s.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla Karnstein stays in the shadows, never seeming to notice the people around her. But one person she can't seem to STOP noticing is Laura Hollis. The two soon realize that they have a lot to teach other and that life is all about how you fold it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Co-written by tumblr users kellyymanning and whoiselizabethchilds. This chapter written by kellyymanning. Track the tumblr tag "carmilla origami au" for updates and use that tag to communicate with us if you prefer not to use our ask boxes. We are going to try to update weekly or every other week hopefully. Thanks!

“Laura, hey, Laura. Laura.” Carmilla says with a gentle urgency, reaching out to her in the dark.

Carmilla hadn’t been able to sleep for very long. She was used to it though, the racing thoughts, needing to take a moment to breathe. Laura didn’t deserve that, and she didn’t deserve Laura. So instead of risking Laura waking up to find her staring at her in the dark (Carmilla couldn’t help it if there was a whole other level of breathtaking about Laura when she was asleep), Carmilla had carefully gotten out from under the covers, waiting until the last possible moment to let go of Laura’s hand before walking over to Laura’s window and leaning against the sill.

There was something about the night sky that was extremely comforting. The stars have always shone, seeing the lives of this world being played out on the ground below it. It made her own problems seem pretty insignificant in comparison.

Carmilla had been pondering her existence when she first heard the incoherent mumbling coming from the girl in the bed. She would’ve passed it off as it being some dumb dream, if she hadn’t heard the bedsprings, and the sheets rustling, and the whimpers that sounded like they were coming from a kicked puppy and not from Laura.

Laura, Laura, Laura.

She would say her name a thousand times over if it meant that she would be able to get out of whatever dream she was having.

Laura

If it meant that her muscles would be less tense and that she would release the death grip she had on her sheets

Laura

Because she knows what it’s like to feel trapped, and she doesn’t want Laura to be, not if she can help it anyway.

Laura finally wakes up; she shoots up, her breathing is heavy and her eyes are more alert than they should be for someone who had been sleeping soundly only moments ago. It takes her a moment to get acquainted with her surroundings again. She goes through a mental checklist: She’s in her room and not squeezed inside the…

And she can breathe. Breathing is good.

And she’s not alone tonight because Carmilla is…

Oh. Right.

She feels a hand on her shoulder and turns to look at Carmilla, who is hovering over her with a concerned expression on her face. And it’s actually kind of scary, because Carmilla rarely shows vulnerability when it comes to herself, never mind other people. Laura can see the worry on Carmilla’s features, and she’s seen the expression before, but never this intense.

Laura just wants to tell her that nothing is wrong, that she’ll be fine eventually, that ‘it’ happens and she’s used to it. It’s what she tells herself all the time.

It’s a burden she doesn’t need to unload onto anyone else, especially Carmilla, since they had only really just become friends and all.

But part of her just wants to tell Carmilla everything, because she can feel Carmilla’s distress as it pulses out of the fingertips running along her arm, sending a soothing shockwave throughout her body.

Laura knows it would probably make things easier for her, as talking about things in general normally does. She could tell Carmilla about the nightmares she has, with the light so bright that it’s blinding, and the pressure that makes her feel like her chest is about to explode. She could tell her about the fact that nobody else knows aside from LaF, and even then they only knew the vague details. She could tell her about how she hates dreaming, hates how her dreams completely terrify her, and how she’s desperately afraid to lose them. It’s one of the few things she has left from her mom.

She starts slowly, her voice shaking, “Th-there was this bright light and it just kept getting bigger and closer and…” Laura closes her eyes for a brief moment and shakes her head.

“a-and it-”

No. She can’t do it. Her words get stuck at the back of her throat, and her chest starts feeling tight again. It’s too tight. She can’t tell Carmilla anything.

So she bows her head and starts crying instead.

Carmilla puts a hand on Laura’s back and starts rubbing gently. “Shh. Shh. Okay,” she says, her voice soft. “I don’t need an explanation, cutie.”

She looks at Laura. Carmilla thinks she’s like paper – fragile, torn, can crumple at any moment.

It’s one of the great flaws of human design.

Carmilla isn’t an expert on comfort. She’s not used to taking care of other people. Sure, sometimes she deals with the twerp and his problems, but he also has their mom to go to. Carmilla doesn’t really have anyone to take care of _her_ , which was whatever because Carmilla had quickly gotten used to it. She just doesn’t really know how to comfort someone else. All she really knows is that words can’t always help, and that less can be more when it comes to consoling.

She pauses for a moment to go and slide back into her spot under the covers, hooking an arm around Laura, waiting for her to lean into her before doing any more touching. Everyone has their own level of comfort in these kinds of situations, so yeah, just because Laura sometimes practically jumps on top of her to give her a hug, doesn’t mean that she would want to be super touchy now.

It’s hard to read someone who’s normally an open book when a few of the pages are glued together.

So instead of trying to pry the pages apart and unintentionally cause them harm, Carmilla settles with small affectionate touches.

She’s afraid of the scorch marks that her fingers normally leave behind, so she’s careful, and takes it as a good sign when Laura doesn’t flinch away from her touch.

Carmilla strokes Laura’s arm, and her back, and her hair with gentle fingers.

She tries to keep her breathing steady, so that maybe Laura, who has her body pressed against hers, can steady her breathing too.

She does everything that nobody ever did for her, for as long as it would take. Carmilla knows what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night, wanting nothing more than to be able to fall back to sleep without having _that_ play out in her head again. She doesn’t know what Laura’s “ _that_ ” is, but it’s irrelevant.

All she knows is that she wants Laura to feel safe enough to fall asleep again, because she has so much goodness to share and her time shouldn’t be wasted being in fear. And if she isn’t going to be a shitty person for a part of the day, she might as well use that time on someone who really deserves it.

Carmilla isn’t sure how long she sits there with Laura in her arms, but that doesn’t really matter because time is only an abstract concept (but that’s a thought for another day). Once it seems like Laura is doing a bit better, Carmilla asks, very gently, “Do you want to hear a story?” She figures that offering something else to fill Laura’s head couldn’t hurt.

Of all the things Carmilla could have asked her, Laura definitely wasn’t expecting that.

But then again, she didn’t really have a lot of expectations for this night (er-super early morning?) anymore. She didn’t expect to have one of those dreams, again, never mind to have one that bad, even with Carmilla next to her.

Carmilla feels Laura move against her chest, but she isn’t sure whether it’s a response to her question or she’s just adjusting her position. She is about to open her mouth again, but she hears a soft, “Stars,” and a few moments later, “Please.”

Carmilla considers it for a moment. “Yeah, yeah. Of course.”

She readjusts her hold on the smaller girl and takes a minute to think about what kind of story she should tell. Carmilla doesn’t really consider herself a storyteller, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have plenty of stories to tell.

“Okay. This is a story of a girl and the stars. It isn’t exactly simple, nor is it extremely complex. It’s just… a story.”

Laura doesn’t seem to have any objection, so she continues.

“It starts out when she is very young, at the age when snowflakes still taste sweet and dreams are made of dandelions and teddy bears and other things of innocence. It’s summer, the air is cool and the place isn’t all that important. She’s standing barefoot in the grass, holding a jar that is probably too big for hands, and watching in awe as small orbs of light bounce against the sides of the jar. But she doesn’t watch for too long because she knows that stars shouldn’t be contained in something so small, so she opens the lid and lets them settle against the night sky again.”

Laura lets out a small yawn and snuggles into Carmilla’s chest. Carmilla has a good voice for storytelling, she thinks, and makes a mental note to mention it later when she’s feeling a bit more stable.

Carmilla on the other hand, isn’t sure how she’s not dead yet, but she knows that thinking about the fact that Laura Hollis is doing everything in her power to be as close to her as possible, or that Laura Hollis is clutching onto her shirt, or even that Laura Hollis can feel so comfortable sharing this intimate of a moment with her is completely selfish.  
So she continues her story…

  
\---

“… And then the stars seemed to lose their magic, but just as when it seemed like they would never shine as bright she met…”Carmilla trails off when she notices that Laura has finally fallen asleep. She wonders when Laura fell asleep exactly, though she knows that it really isn’t all that important. All that mattered was that Laura had gotten back to sleep. It’s not like Carmilla knows the ending to the story anyway.

//

Carmilla lets out a groan when the morning light lands on her and buries her face into the yellow pillow that Laura had been sleeping on last night. It takes Carmilla a moment to realize that there is an absence of Laura in the bed but she doesn’t dwell on it too long, after all she knows that she’s sort of intruding with invitation into the ‘world of Hollis.’ She wouldn’t be surprised if Laura had woken up super early to do yoga as the sun rose or something.

Because Laura was totally the kind of person who would do that.

Carmilla rolls over to look at Laura’s alarm clock, which says that it’s about twelve hours earlier than she normally wakes up on a Sunday.

Okay, maybe twelve is a slight exaggeration, but three isn’t.

And she had only started getting up _that_ early on a weekly basis ever since she had met up with Laura at the library, however many weeks ago that was. It’s a habit that she can’t break, and she doesn’t really want to either.

Carmilla slowly sits up, stretches her arms over her head and lets out a small yawn. She figures she isn’t doing any good just staying in the bed, because if she falls back to sleep she isn’t sure how much effort it would require to get her up again.

When she actually gets up, she smells something cooking downstairs and just shakes her head with a smile, because Laura _would_.

After quickly freshening up for the morning, Carmilla makes her way downstairs, and once she gets to the kitchen stands in the doorframe for a moment, just watching Laura be Laura. She knows that she has a habit of sneaking up on Laura, but, whatever, it’s not like she can help the fact that she’s gotten used to making herself not be seen or heard. But after considering it for a minute, she thinks that startling Laura mid-action in the kitchen probably isn’t the best idea.

When the moment finally presents itself, she lets out a, “Morning, cutie.”

There’s a small bang, and Laura whips around with her spatula pointed at Carmilla in an accusatory manner. “Jesus, Carm, you really need to stop doing that.” It’s hard for her to stay irritated for too long though, because her brain can’t really wrap around the fact that someone can look that good for having just woken up.

Carmilla puts her hands up in defense. “Hey, I can’t help it if you have selective hearing.”

Laura is snapped out of her stare (no, really, how is it possible for someone to wake up looking that flawless? Laura knows she couldn’t), and says, “Jerk.”

“Eh, maybe sometimes.” Carmilla shrugs before crossing the kitchen to where Laura is standing.

Laura rolls her eyes. “Well good morning to you too, anyway. I hope you slept okay?”

“Decently.” Carmilla looks over Laura’s shoulder and glances at the notecard on the counter. She thinks about it for a minute and concludes that she’s not going to die from Laura’s cooking, at least not today anyway.

“Pancakes, huh?”

“Yeah,” Laura says with a nod before turning her head towards Carmilla. “That’s okay, right? I mean I know I shouldn’t just assume that you like them just because, you know, a lot of other people do, cause, you know, they’re a pretty common breakfast food, and I normally make them anywa-”

“Laura.”

That shuts her up fairly quickly.

“Pancakes are fine. It’s really thoughtful of you.”

Before she can start to sound sappier (Carmilla sappy? What. No, never), Carmilla grabs a strawberry out of the container on the counter and takes a bite before going to sit at the table.

“So when did you get up, anyway?”

She vaguely remembers some alarm going off, but since it happened in that part of her sleep when she was literally dead to the world, she isn’t sure if it had actually happened or not.

“Um,” Laura scrunches up her nose in the adorable way that she does before transferring the plate with the stack of pancakes and the container of strawberries to the table. “I dunno, a while ago, I guess.”

She sits down at the table and Carmilla looks over at Laura and studies her, trying to see how okay she is. She had always suspected that something was off with Laura, but at least now that she’s pretty sure that at least she knows what the cause is, she can do a better job of making sure that Laura is relatively okay.

“And your dad is…?” She wonders if he’s going to join them, and kind of hopes that he isn’t. It’s not like she has anything against Laura’s dad, she barely knows the guy, but her and parents don’t really mix well and she doesn’t want to start the morning off on a sour note.

"At work," she replies simply.

Carmilla follows Laura’s lead and takes a few pancakes from the stack, putting them on her plate. Laura looks over at her expectantly, and Carmilla figures she might as well humor her, so she cuts off a piece and takes a bite.

Even with the minor dietary inconvenience, it’s good, like, really good.

“So, just for future reference when you make me food again, cause hmm, yep, that’s happening,” Carmilla licks her lips for effect, “It’s probably at least just a minor importance that you know that I’m lactose intolerant.”

In response to the completely mortified look on Laura’s face, Carmilla adds, “And before you start freaking out or anything, no I’m not going to die from eating this, because I can handle it in moderation, and I never brought it up because I didn’t expect you to just make me food, and bringing up the fact that even dairy really isn’t my friend isn’t appropriate for everyday conversation,” she shrugs and takes another bite of pancakes.

“Carmilla, that’s still kind of important for me to know!” Laura is still mortified. What if she had made something else and had made Carmilla sick or something? She probably wouldn’t want to come over again, possibly never want to see her again, and it would’ve ruined the day completely.

Carmilla can see that Laura’s still thinking too much about it.

“Alright. So new topic...”

“But C-”

Carmilla raises an eyebrow, and Laura lets out a sigh as if to say ‘fine’.

“So, um… so how does it end? You know, the story you were telling me last night?” Laura takes a bite of food that’s too big for her mouth and Carmilla just smirks in amusement at Laura’s chipmunk cheeks.

“Well you’re gonna have to stay awake next time to hear it, aren’t you, cutie?”

A million thoughts race to Laura’s head.

Wait. Next time? As in like, next time she stays over? As in, she actually wants to stay over again???

Laura isn’t sure what she should say; she didn’t expect that after what happened last night. But she also doesn’t want to say anything to make Carmilla not want to come over again, because despite the particular… circumstance that came up last night, being that close with Carmilla was really nice.

Before Laura can say anything, Carmilla adds a bit more seriously, “But uh, you have my number. I’m usually up at odd hours and am a pretty light sleep otherwise so…” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but Laura knows that she’s not just talking about the end of the story.

Laura nods, before picking at her food a bit.

“Yeah. Same. I mean, like if you’d ever want to hear a story not on a Sunday. I don’t know if my stories would be as good as yours but -"

Carmilla’s lips curve into a small smile as she says, “I think I would like that very much.”

They sit in silence for a few moments before Carmilla grabs a strawberry and says, “alright, open.”

“What?”

“I wanna see if you can catch a strawberry in your mouth. You know, for… funsies.” The word tastes weird in her mouth.”

“Funsies?” Maybe she does need her hearing checked, because Laura is pretty sure that the word “funsies” has never been a part of Carmilla’s vocabulary.

“Come on. Humor me.” Carmilla grabs a couple more strawberries with her other hand

“Fine.” Laura opens her mouth and Carmilla acts as if she’s going to throw the strawberry that she’s holding in her right hand before tossing the handful in her left instead.

Laura keeps her mouth opened, stunned for a moment before scolding, “Carmilla! Why are you wasting perfectly good strawberries?!?”

Carmilla shrugs, “Hey, I never said my aim was any good.”

Before she knows it a few pieces of pancake hit her in the face. “Um, excuse you. That is completely unfair because I never said you were allowed to throw things back at me.”

“Yeah, well, my house, my rules, and you totally deserved that.”

“Yeah, well,” Carmilla mimics, “You can’t just start throwing things at your guests that’s just rude. And I mean wouldn’t it be unfortunate…”

Laura follows Carmilla’s gaze over to where the ingredients still are on the counter.

“Carmilla, no!”

“If someone were to just…” she gets up from the table and walks sideways towards the counter.

“Carm, it’s going to make a mess and then we’re going to have to clean it up and I really don-”

Laura braces herself for the handful of flour coming at her face, shutting her eyes just in time.

After a quick wipe of her face, Laura stands up and says, “Oh, it is so on, Karnstein,” and pretty soon food is being thrown back and forth, baking trays are being used as shields, and the pure sound of feeling completely carefree bounces off the walls.

Mornings like this? Yeah, Carmilla could get used to it.

//

It’s Monday, and Carmilla is at school way earlier than she should be, but, whatever, it’s not like she’s forced to stay there. She runs her hand along the lockers as she walks down the hallway, feeling the cold metal against her fingertips. It makes her fingers start to burn as the memory starts to slowly seep back into her body. She hates it. But she has to remind herself that it’s different now, a different time, a different place. The burning will go away eventually. It always does.

Once she gets to the section of the hallway where Laura’s locker is, she’s reassured that she’s okay, and that she’ll be okay, because Laura makes everything okay.

She pauses in front of Laura’s locker and takes a deep breath, before grabbing the lock and dialing the combination that she had seen Laura put in countless of times. The feeling of a lock in her hand is still foreign to her, and is a heavy reminder of things she’d rather not think about.

Her task is simple, so she tries to get through it as fast as possible, opening the locker and slipping something inside before shutting it again, making sure it’s locked properly before heading back down the hallway again.

The things she does for Laura.

//

“So anyway, I gently pointed out the fact that they had asked for my opinion in the first place, and just because they didn’t agree with what I had to say, didn’t mean I was wrong.”

Laura peeks out from behind her locker door to look at Danny, who has a smug look on her face.

“And?”

 

“I have a date Friday night.”

“Wow. Finally. It’s been like what, 87 years?”

“Oh shut up, Hollis, just because you had a growth spurt of like half a centimeter, doesn’t mean I can’t still step on you.”

“Um, it was a whole centimeter, thank you very much,” Laura responds.

They both laugh, and Laura turns back to her locker, getting the things she needs for her next class. She was running late this morning (bike issues but more like yikes issues), so she had only spent about .5 seconds at her locker when she arrived. She had made Danny stop with her at her locker on their usual walk to their respective classes together.  
Laura notices a small colored object that doesn’t really belong in her locker, so she takes it out of her locker and noticing the familiar shape, quickly shoves it into her pocket.

“What’s that?” Danny asks.

“Uhm, nothing. A stickynote. Reminder. Thing. Anyway, um,” Laura takes a paper out of her folder and quickly hands it to Danny. “While we’re here I figured I might as well give it to you now.”

Danny starts to read it and Laura explains, “It’s the proposal. Er- well a rough draft anyway. I was going to have Perry look it over later and you know, give some feedback on how make it seem more professional.”

Danny hands the paper back. “Carmilla is on this.”

“Yeah, and?” Laura replies, not really sure where Danny is going with that.

“Why is Carmilla on this?”

“Um I don’t know, maybe because she’s helped out a considerable amount? The whole reason we’re even doing things with paper in the first place is because I got the idea from her, she taught me how to make cranes, and she came over the other day to help with making triangles so that we, as in you, me, LaF, and Perry, can at least try to make a couple of prototypes before we hand the proposal in. So yes, Carmilla is on this because we wouldn’t even be where we are in the first place without her.” Laura crosses her arms.

“Jeez, Hollis, attacking me, much?

“ _I'm_ attacking _you_?” Laura raises her voice. “What about you, huh? I mean every time you hear her name you have to make some sort of comment. I know you don’t like her, fine, whatever, that’s between you and her. You know I care about you a lot, but when my friends are constantly attacked, I take it very personally.”

Danny is about to rebut when the bell rings, so instead just clenches her jaw.

“Fine.”

She turns to walk away before she pauses and looks at Laura again.

“Just… be careful, okay?” And with that she turns and heads towards her class.

Laura closes her locker and taps it with her head a few times for good measure.

Mondays really suck.

//

You are.

They’re two simple words, yet they’re vague enough to leave Laura trying to figure out the significance of the star she found in her locker that morning. She assumes it’s a continuation of the first star she found with something written on it, the one that said “Laura” that she had found on her nightstand. But she isn’t sure if it’s to be it’s own statement, “Laura, you are,” as in “Laura, you exist,” or “Laura, here is a thing that you are.”

Carmilla always seems to make the simplest things seem so complex.

And it’s kind of frustrating, because then Laura usually finds herself spending all day trying to figure out what Carmilla means half the time. At least today it serves as a distraction so she doesn’t have to think about other things.

Laura decides that she’ll confront Carmilla about it when they meet up afterschool.

\--

Carmilla is barely at Laura’s locker for two seconds before Laura’s shoving the star she had left earlier in her face.

“What the heck is this supposed to mean???”

“Oh, hey Carmilla, how was your day? Oh it was just fine and dandy, thanks for asking, cupcake, how was yours?”

Laura lightly swats her on the arm with her notebook and Carmilla just grins.

“Still didn’t answer my question,” Laura says before moving her threatening hand away from Carmilla’s face and turning back to what she had been doing when Carmilla had gotten there.

“But…my day kind of sucked, actually. Danny and I kind of…I dunno. I kind of yelled at her.” Laura stays focused on her locker so that she doesn’t have to think about it too much.

Carmilla would pay anything to see the tiny ball of rage she’s sure Laura can be go against the Jolly Ginger Giant, but she figures it probably isn’t the best time to voice her opinion on the matter, so she just says, “Oh. I’m sorry.” It’s sincere. While she personally isn’t too fond of the Amazon, she knows that Laura cares about her a lot, just like she does all her friends.

Laura shrugs and Carmilla tries changing the subject.

“Well, anyway, if you must know,” Carmilla reaches into her pocket and feels around for a decent sized star (Laura doesn’t need to know that she’s made multiple that she’s saving to leave around when Laura isn’t looking), and pulls it out, inspecting it for a moment before saying, “I wanted to find the best way to tell you this super important thing, and I figured since I make you stars anyway…”

Laura watches as Carmilla sticks a hand into her locker and grabs a fine point pen from the container full of various writing implements, before taking the cap off with her teeth and gently scribbling a few words onto the star. Laura disregards the fact that Carmilla’s germs are all over the pen cap when Carmilla winks at her and hands over the bit of folded paper. Yeah, she really can’t stay mad for that long.

While Carmilla caps the pen and drops it back into the container in Laura’s locker, Laura holds the star up to her face and scrunches up her nose, the words “A Dork” staring back at her.

As if she can read her mind, Carmilla says, “You’re probably the biggest dork I know, actually, but for some reason I keep you around, not really sure why though.”

She smiles, and Laura concludes that Carmilla means it in the best kind of way.“Actually, it’s because I’m cute,” Laura replies matter - of – factly with a single nod, teasing Carmilla back.

She swallows thickly when Carmilla says, “amongst other things,” and her eyes linger for probably longer than they should.

But it’s not like she should be overthinking that too much, right? Friends always say nice things about each other, and mess with each other, and that tingly feeling she gets sometimes when Carmilla looks at her like that is totally normal, right?

Okay maybe not exactly.

It’s not like she’d never considered the fact that she might like girls, and even if it was true, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she likes Carmilla in that way.

And if hypothetically that feeling she gets from like, ninety seven percent of the time she spends with Carmilla means that she likes her more than just platonically, it doesn’t mean that Carmilla likes her back in the same way. It’s not like she’s seen Carmilla interact with enough people to make a good enough comparison to how Carmilla acts with her.

Before Lara can start to get too carried away with her thoughts, Carmilla starts to say, “So, what tim-” before she is interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. She pulls her phone out and Laura notices that she tenses up once she sees who’s calling.

When she accepts the call and holds the phone to her ear she doesn’t say anything, at least with her voice. Laura can sense that something isn’t right based on the shift in Carmilla’s body language and the way that her face seemed to be expressing multiple things at once. She knows that it isn’t her place to ask who it is, so she just goes back to getting her stuff together to bring home.

“I wasn’t looking at it, obviously,” Carmilla says finally, turning away from Laura and starting to walk a few steps away from her.

Another pause. “I told you yesterday that I wasn-” She’s cut off and holds her tongue, and she can feel the tension growing in her shoulders.

“No, of course not, I figured he could hitchhike, it’ll do him some good.” Carmilla’s voice is dripping with so much sarcasm that Laura wonders how there isn’t a puddle next to her. Not that she’s intentionally eavesdropping of course, that would just be rude.

When Laura shuts her locker, Carmilla jumps, then has to reassure whoever she’s talking to that “No, it was nothing,” even when her voice gets squeaky and she can hear her heart beating in her ears, and adds that she was already on her way to wherever she was supposed to be.

She hangs up and walks back over to Laura.“Hey,” Carmilla runs a hand through her hair, and Laura can tell that the Carmilla in front of her now was a different one than she had been talking to a few moments ago.

“Sorry, I have to go. But I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

She’s quieter. It’s weird.

Laura nods. “Of course.” She really wishes that she were better at reading Carmilla, but at the least knows that she shouldn’t bombard her with questions. She offers, “You can text me later too, you know, per ushe.”

Carmilla gives her a nod and shoves her hand into her jacket pocket, running her thumb along one of the stars still inside. It’s comforting “Yeah, I will.”

God knows she’s going to need to.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She woke up this morning with a feeling in her stomach that something bad was going to happen today. And when she saw Laura with her head in her locker, on the verge of tears, she thought, well…
> 
> But Laura was fine."

As Laura pushes into the school on Thursday morning, she thinks she’s probably never felt as uneager to go to class as she is at that moment. Her shoes shuffle against the gray-white of the linoleum hallway tiles, leading her toward her locker on autopilot.

She’s had the crappiest morning, like, ever, and she knows she should be grateful that things probably aren’t worse, but she just doesn’t really feel like being chipper right now.

She might feel different if she hadn’t woken up in a sweat, her bones shaking and on edge. Last night’s dream had her stomach twisting painfully, the memory of it etched into the back of her eyelids. And still, some sick part of her continues to feel relief every morning she wakes up and realizes she hasn’t lost the dreams. At least not yet.

Still, that doesn’t make them any less painful.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, her stupid bike tire somehow popped overnight. Her dad had given her a ride to school, and that was… unpleasant. Her seatbelt was too tight and she’d repeatedly had to remind herself that it wasn’t choking her the whole way to school, and her dad had asked her like, ten times if she was okay, which she is, but like, he drives really slowly and wouldn’t let her roll the window down because it was drizzling outside.

She just doesn’t really feel well this morning.

She gets to her locker, her shaky fingers butchering the combination twice before she finally clicks the lock and swings the door open. She sighs and pulls her math book out, causing a small piece of paper to fall to the floor at her feet, which like, what the heck? She is way more organized than that.

Leaning down to pick the piece of paper up, she realizes it’s another of Carmilla’s stars (seriously how is she getting into Laura’s locker??). A small smile pulls at her lips as she stands up straight and holds the star closer to read it.

Unlike the other stars she’s received from Carmilla so far (“a dork”, “tiny”, and “a tiny dork”), this one doesn’t have words on it, just a small doodle of a cupcake.

_Laura… you are… a cupcake_.

She feels tiny pin-prick tears spring in her eyes and she really shouldn’t be crying, but her morning was _so_ bad and Carmilla is just _so_ nice and she just…

She takes a deep breath and sticks her head into her locker a little bit so nobody will see that she’s getting emotional over being called a cupcake by a grumpy loser on a small, star-shaped piece of paper.

“Laura?”

Laura shoves her face further into her locker because this is about to be the most embarrassing moment of her life.

“Laura!” Carmilla says more urgently, her hand circling Laura’s wrist. “Laura, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Laura says quietly, but her voice echoes around the locker. “I’m fine.”

Carmilla doesn’t let go of her wrist. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” she says, the locker muffling her voice. She wills her eyes to not look like she’s been crying and pulls her face out of the locker. “Why would you think that?”

She turns to look at Carmilla, whose worried eyes scan her body quickly. Laura feels heat creep up her neck under Carmilla’s attentive stare.

“I just…” Carmilla bites her lip and releases her grip around Laura’s wrist. “Never mind.”

“Okay…” Laura doesn’t understand Carmilla sometimes. She tilts her head to the side, studying Carmilla as she adjusts her messenger bag on her shoulder. Carmilla looks super pretty today, her wavy hair falling over the lapels of her leather jacket. Her eyes still move quickly over Laura’s body, looking for something Laura doesn’t think she’ll find. They eventually meet Laura’s, softening in a way Laura’s never seen them do before.

“Have you been crying?” Carmilla asks her quietly. Laura stills as Carmilla lifts a finger up to Laura’s face, wiping delicately under her eye. Her eyelids flutter closed at the touch, but quickly reopen when it disappears.

She shakes her head. “Not really.” Carmilla looks like she doesn’t believe her so she shrugs. “I just kind of had a rough morning.”

“Oh.” Carmilla’s lips thin sympathetically. She seems to hesitate before she speaks. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

She really doesn’t because there’s so much to say and she doesn’t really have words to explain it. She shakes her head. “No, but… can you give me a hug?”

Carmilla just stares at her for a second before she nods slowly and opens her arms slightly. Laura leans into her, her forehead resting against Carmilla’s cheek. Carmilla’s arms carefully wrap around her back and Laura closes her eyes, taking one moment to just breathe. Carmilla smells like she always does, and it’s familiar and nice and it tugs at something deep within Laura. She feels Carmilla’s breath in her hair and one of her hands rubs small circles on Laura’s back, and the feeling pulls harder, settling into her stomach with a flutter.

The bell rings and Laura flinches, pulling away from Carmilla quickly. She’d almost forgotten they were at school.

“Thanks,” she says quietly, meeting Carmilla’s eyes. They stare at her carefully, like Carmilla is wary that she might start crying.

“Anytime.” Carmilla seems to shake out of her soft mood, her lips pulling up in a grin. “See you around, _cupcake_.” She winks at Laura and spins on her heel, disappearing into the crowd of students moving toward their classes.

Laura shuts her locker and heads off to class, shoving the little star into her hoodie pocket.

Okay, so maybe today started out kind of crappy, she thinks as her fingers wrap around the star.

But maybe, just maybe, it’s not the worst day ever.

//

Carmilla’s on edge.

She woke up this morning with a feeling in her stomach that something bad was going to happen today. And when she saw Laura with her head in her locker, on the verge of tears, she thought, well…

But Laura was fine.

(Laura is _fine_ , she repeats over and over.)

Still. She’s on edge.

Her fingers clench in and out instinctively as she sits in History and after a few minutes, she can’t take it anymore, so she pulls out one of her premade slips of paper and starts folding a star for Laura.

Her legs jiggle and her feet tap under her desk, and she tries not to think too much about the image of Laura crying, head inside her locker.

(Laura is fine Laura is fine Laura is fine)

She finishes wrapping the strip of paper and pinches in the corners, feeling a gentle satisfaction when she finishes.

Carmilla squeezes the star lightly between her fingers, careful not to crush it. She thinks of Laura and of a thousand cranes and of wishes that won’t come true no matter how many stars you wish on.

When the bell rings, she quickly scrawls _a cutie_ on the star, adding it to the list of things Laura just-so-happens to be, wondering how long she can keep this up before she says too much.

She leaves the star on the desk and grabs her bag, pushing out into the crowd of students filing into the hall. Her eyes scan the area for Laura like they always do during this passing period, hoping she’ll catch her as she comes to History.

She walks slowly down the hall, not in a rush to get to her next class and still searching the crowd for Laura when she sees something that makes her heart jump into her throat.

A tall, scrawny kid wearing all black towers over another student, pushing them back into a row of lockers. It’s one of Laura’s friends, the smaller one that Carmilla doesn’t really hate. She stops in her tracks, watching as the boy leans down to say something to Laura’s friend, a sneer on his face.

Laura’s friend – LaF, she thinks is their name – looks small compared to him, and it strikes something deep within Carmilla, poking at an old wound that never truly healed.

Carmilla knows something about feeling small.

In three steps, she’s crossed the hallway, coming between the two.

“Hey,” she growls, her hand pushing against his chest. “Back off.”

The boy (Carmilla’s never seen him before) raises an eyebrow at her, unamused and clearly not threatened. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll punch your tiny dick so hard you’ll forget your name.” Her fingers flex and she feels LaF shift behind her.

“Sure, sure,” the boy says and Carmilla feels anger settle in her stomach, red and seething.

“Listen here,” she murmurs lowly. “You _will_ leave LaF here alone, or I _will_ have something to say about it.”

The boy rolls his eyes. “Really? You girls are what, a hundred pounds each? Is that supposed to scare me?”

Carmilla grits her teeth.

“Uh,” LaF mutters. “Maybe we should all just chill for a second.”

The boy snorts. “Yeah, you heard the freak. Chill out, Count Snarkula.”

Carmilla may know something about feeling small, but she’s learned how to make herself feel big.

Her palm is strong against the boy’s chest and she pushes, his back hitting the locker next to LaF with a loud _thunk_. Hot air burns in her chest, anger that’s been building for years bubbling to the surface, making her feel strong. She pushes her hand again, pinning the boy to the locker, his chest hard beneath her palm. Her vision blurs at the edges, but her eyes focus on the boy’s face, his pupils wide in surprise, mouth open as he exhales sharply.

“KARNSTEIN!”

She blinks. Blinks again. Inhales.

She turns her head to the side, eyes landing on Wilcox as he approaches. Her palm still pushes against the kid’s chest.

“Karnstein. Dean’s office.”

Wilcox crosses his arms, and realization suddenly floods through her. She pulls her hand away like it’s been burned.

“Mr. Wilcox,” LaF begins, but Wilcox shakes his head.

“I saw the whole thing, Susan.”

Carmilla’s hands shake. She takes a few steps away from the kid, her breath coming quicker. How did this happen? How could she…?

“It’s LaFontaine, for the last time. And Carmilla – ”

“Is on her way to the Dean’s office,” Wilcox interrupts. Carmilla just stares at him, the words barely registering. “Now,” he snaps with authority.

Carmilla jumps, her body on high-alert. She turns, hoping her feet know where to go because it doesn’t feel like her brain does. She barely sees LaF staring at her.

She can still feel the boy’s chest under her palm. Her fingertips pulse with the feeling. She clenches them in and out, shoving them in her pockets.

As her feet lead her down the hall on autopilot, she exhales shakily, the nagging feeling from this morning returning to her stomach, making her queasy.

She knew something bad was going to happen today.

She thinks of Laura, head in her locker, eyes puffy and red with tears.

Laura is fine, she reminds herself.

As she approaches the door marked DEAN KARNSTEIN, Carmilla realizes that while Laura is fine, she might not be.

She turns the handle and wills herself to not throw up.

//

Laura leaves History a lot happier than she was when she got there.

Her day had gotten slightly better, but she was sad she hadn’t gotten to see Carmilla before class. Carmilla usually waits for her, unless she has to go to the bathroom or run to her car or something. But she kind of expected her to be waiting today, so when she wasn’t there, Laura felt a little let down.

But then she sat at her desk and saw the star Carmilla had left for her, the one that basically called her cute, and like, yeah okay, Carmilla calls her ‘cutie’ all the time, but still. It made her feel really good.

She stops by her locker before her last period because it’s on the way and she hates lugging her History textbook around. It makes her backpack super heavy.

“Okay, so you’ll never guess what happened.”

Laura quirks an eyebrow as LaF slides up next to her locker. “You discovered a new bacteria?”

“No,” LaF says, their eyes widening. “That would be so sweet, though.”

Laura grins at her friend’s enthusiasm. “I think we have different definitions of the word sweet.”

“Yeah, probably.” LaF gets a dazed look of wonderment in their eyes before they shake out of it. “But no, okay. So I was at my locker getting my books for class and waiting for Perry like I normally do before sixth, right? And that one new kid comes up and starts calling me a freak and – ”

“Wait,” Laura interrupts, suddenly angry. “Who called you a freak? Did you report it? Do you want me to come with you? I will because that is just unacceptable and I will not stand – ”

“Chill, L, let me finish.” LaF raises an eyebrow at her and she snaps her mouth shut. Even though she doesn’t want to. “Alright,” LaF continues. “So I was about to tell him that statistically, we’re all freaks and that doesn’t really matter to me, but then you know what happens?”

LaF looks at her expectantly and Laura shakes her head. “Uh… no? What?”

“Carmilla happens!” LaF grins excitedly and Laura feels her face scrunch up in confusion.

“Carmilla? As in my Carmilla?”

LaF rolls their eyes. “Do you know any other Carmillas?” Laura shakes her head. “That’s what I thought. So, yeah, Carmilla comes up, and starts like, telling the kid off, it was so rad. And then it got kind of heated, I swear, L, it was intense, I thought she was going to rip this dude’s face off. But then Wilcox came out and got pissed at her, which was totally unfair, and he sent her to the Dean’s.”

Laura’s mouth drops open. “He _what_?”

“Sent her to the Dean’s, yeah.” LaF nods sadly. “It was total bullshit.”

Laura’s mind starts to race. Carmilla stood up for LaF? And got in trouble. But her mom is the Dean, right? Would that mean she would be in more trouble or less? Laura’s not sure. Carmilla has never talked about her mom before. Not that Laura’s ever asked.

Oh god, she’s so dumb. Why has she never asked?

“Yo, Earth to Laura?” LaF waves a hand in front of her face.

“Sorry,” she says weakly, her fingers curling around the star in her pocket.

“It’s cool,” LaF shrugs. “I’m sure Carmilla will be fine. She’s not going to get in trouble without a fight.”

Laura twists her lips doubtfully. “Yeah, that’s kinda what I’m afraid of.”

“You should’ve seen her, L. She had this kid pushed against the locker like it was _nothing_.” LaF gets a faraway look on their face. “Do you think she has super-strength?”

“What? No.” Laura rolls her eyes fondly, absentmindedly pulling the star from her pocket. There’s no way somebody with super-strength (like that’s even a real thing?) would be able to make the delicate things Carmilla does.

“Hey,” LaF says, eyes focusing on the star in Laura’s hands. “What’s that?”

Laura holds up the star. “Carm made it for me.” She hands it to LaF, who brings it up to their face, examining the writing.

“ _A cutie_?” LaF quirks an eyebrow. “Wowwww.”

Laura can’t help the blush that spreads across her face. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were thinking it,” Laura grumbles.

LaF smirks. “Whatever you say… Crushes on Karnstein.”

Laura’s mouth falls open in shock. “I do _not_ have a crush on Carmilla. We’re _friends_!”

“Sure,” LaF grins. “If you say so.”

“I…” Laura bites her lip.

So maybe she _does_ like when Carmilla makes her the stars. And maybe her chest feels all fluttery when Carmilla smiles at her. And just, you know, _perhaps_ she thinks about Carmilla a lot and feels a tug in her stomach when Carmilla hugs her.

But that doesn’t mean she has a crush on her, does it?

“We’re friends,” Laura repeats, but something settles within her, the thought of Carmilla making her slightly flustered. Okay… maybe it’s just like, a _tiny_ crush…

LaF just nods and hands the star back to her. “I gotta get to class anyway. Talk to you later, L.”

Laura just watches them walk away, her fingers clutching the star again. She anticipates the moment she gets home and will drop the star into the jar on her bedside table, the figure joining her growing collection of Carmilla Origami Originals.

The thought fills her with a subtle warmth, even as she bites her lip in worry about Carmilla getting in trouble.

She hopes Carm is okay…

Laura thinks back to what LaF said about Carmilla having super-strength and imagines her in the Dean’s office getting yelled at.

She hopes super-strength comes in more forms than what LaF meant.

//

“This is unacceptable, Carmilla. What were you thinking?”

So, yeah, unsurprisingly, her mom is pissed. She hoped for one second that maybe she’d understand, but her mom, as usual, clearly doesn’t want to listen.

“Mom – ”

“Did you stop for one second to think how this would reflect poorly on me? Did you stop for one second to think about how you could’ve been hurt?”

“I told you – ”         

Her mom holds up her hand and she snaps her mouth shut, gritting her teeth. Nothing she says is going to change her mom’s mind anyway.

“I don’t want to hear it, Carmilla.” Her mom sighs, her eyes closing in frustration behind her glasses. “You know I have to give you detention, right?”

Carmilla scowls. “Why isn’t the beefcake getting detention? He was harassing LaF!”

“Mr. Wilcox didn’t report anything of that sort,” her mom says shortly.

She rolls her eyes. “That’s because Wilcox has his head so far up his ass that – ”

“Enough!” Her mom snaps, voice rising shrilly.

“No!” Carmilla crosses her arms defiantly. “This isn’t fair!”

Her mom looks away, staring out of the window in her office. Carmilla watches her closely, breathing deeply through her nose and trying not to get upset. She refuses to cry.

“Sweetheart,” her mom says and Carmilla cringes. She turns back to her and Carmilla meets her eyes, their resigned stare not giving her much hope. “I understand that you’re upset, but you’ve put me in a tough position here.”

Carmilla doesn’t say anything and her mom sighs again.

“I can’t give you special treatment, Carmilla, you know that. We’ve been over this.” She smiles sadly and Carmilla feels anger swell up inside her like a wave.

“Special treatment?” She clenches her fists together. “You have never even given me _fair_ treatment!”

“Carmilla – ”

“What about before we moved here? Special treatment? You never even gave those kids detention!” Someone slams a locker from somewhere in the distance and Carmilla cringes. Her breathing starts to pick up as she remembers and she hates it.

“Honey, we’ve been over this,” her mom starts and Carmilla hates it she hates it she hates _her_.

She shoots out of her seat angrily. “THEY SHOVED ME IN A LOCKER!”

“Carmilla, keep your voice down, please.” Her mother leans toward her and Carmilla steps away, moving to the other side of the office.

“They shut me inside a locker for three hours! THREE HOURS!” Her hands shake at the thought and she balls them into fists inside her jacket. “They didn’t even get in trouble. You’re the Dean and my mom. You’re my fucking MOM! And you didn’t do anything about it.”

Her mom frowns and her nostrils flare. “You don’t understand –”

“No, _you_ don’t understand, Mom!” She paces back and forth. Everything is coming back too quickly and she can’t handle it. “Do you know how much I hated that place? My only friend moved away and they called me names and you didn’t do anything about it.” She glares at her mom. “They shoved me in a locker and _you didn’t do anything about it_.”

Her mom stands up. “Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.” Her voice is steady and cold and Carmilla shivers, but doesn’t back down.

“You’re my mom and you’re supposed to do something about it.”

Her mom grits her teeth, sitting back down and turning away from her. “That’s enough, Carmilla. We’ll talk about this at home.”

Carmilla throws her hands in the air. “Oh really? When?” Her voice drips with sarcasm, but her mom ignores her. “You’re never fucking home.”

“You will not speak to me like that.” Her mom meets her eyes and they stare at each other, both refusing to look away.

“Fine,” Carmilla snaps, grabbing her messenger bag from the floor of the office just as the final bell rings. “Then I won’t speak to you at all.”

She glares at her mom one last time before quickly leaving her office, making sure the door slams loudly behind her.

//

During her last period of the day, Laura did a lot of thinking.

Well, she always thinks too much probably, but this time she seriously wasn’t paying attention in class at all.

She just couldn’t stop thinking about Carmilla.

And like, she knows she should’ve been worried about Carmilla getting in trouble with the Dean, and she totally was a lot, but she also just couldn’t stop dissecting everything she’s ever said to Carmilla and everything Carmilla has ever said to her.

And all of the things Carmilla hasn’t said. Because like, Carmilla isn’t really the type of person to give her a play-by-play of what she’s thinking, but Laura realizes that the things Carmilla doesn’t say tell her more than all the things she does.

And if a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a jar full of origami stars worth?

So yeah, Laura’s been thinking. And it’s been pretty conclusive.

She definitely has a crush on Carmilla Karnstein.

And while this was a little jarring to realize (she’s always had a feeling she could like girls… she just has never _actually_ liked a girl before…), she quickly became less concerned with the fact that she likes Carmilla and couldn’t stop wondering if Carmilla likes _her_.

So yeah, cue the analyzing. Which hasn’t been quite as conclusive.

She purses her lips as she shuts her locker, lost in thought. What if Carmilla doesn’t like her in that way? Or worse, what if she does and it completely ruins their friendship?

She turns around from her locker just as she sees Carmilla coming down the hall. Her heart thumps dangerously in her chest as Carmilla comes closer, but she quickly frowns in confusion when Carmilla doesn’t stop to talk to her like she usually does.

“Hey,” Laura calls, hitching her backpack higher on her shoulders and walking after Carmilla. “Carm!” Carmilla doesn’t seem to hear her, so Laura jogs a few steps to catch up. “Carmilla.” She reaches her hand out, grabbing onto Carmilla’s upper arm. Carmilla flinches and jerks her arm away.

Laura stares at her, uncertain what’s going on with her. “Carm?”

Carmilla’s eyes look a thousand miles away and she stares at Laura for a few moments before seeming to realize that it’s her. She exhales shakily.

“Oh,” she says, her voice low and tight. “Uh. Hey cupcake.”

Laura meets her eyes, worriedly. Carmilla seems… off. “Are you okay?”

Carmilla shrugs, tearing her gaze away from Laura’s, watching as the last students trickle out of the school for the day. “Yeah.”

“Are you sure?” Laura doesn’t really believe her. “LaF told me what happened. Did you get in trouble?”

Carmilla laughs, dry and dark, and it kind of freaks Laura out. “I got detention.”

Laura feels her face twist in anger. “But why? Did you tell your mom what happened?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like it matters,” Carmilla huffs. She shifts on her feet, clearly on edge. Laura wants to grab her hand, but she thinks of Carmilla flinching and decides not to.

“Of course it matters,” she says. “Maybe your mom just didn’t really understand. Maybe if you just try to explain it again?”

Carmilla shakes her head. “It’s not that simple, cutie.”

Laura quirks her eyebrows, confused. “I’m sure if you just talked with her again, she’d realize that more was going on.”

“No,” Carmilla snaps. “She won’t.”

Laura’s eyes widen. “Why not?”

Carmilla scowls, avoiding Laura’s eyes. “She just won’t, Laura, okay?”

Laura frowns at Carmilla’s use of her name. Something isn’t right. “Carm, I’m sure she just didn’t understand.”

“No, Laura, _you_ don’t understand.” Carmilla scowls, her cheeks reddening. “I know you think that everything is a misunderstanding, but it’s just not, okay? Problems can’t always be worked through by talking about them. Stop being so naïve.”

The words hit Laura in a rush and she feels tears sting her eyes. “I’m not naïve,” she says defensively.

“Yes you are.” Carmilla grits her teeth. “You think everything is going to work out in the end, but sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes things are just really fucked up.”

“Where is this coming from?”  Laura crosses her arms over her chest protectively. Why is Carmilla being like this?

“Nowhere,” Carmilla says. “I just can’t do this right now. I have to go.” She doesn’t meet Laura’s eyes as she quickly turns away, heading out of the school. Laura stares after her, confused and hurt. She sniffles, trying to hold back the tears that have built behind her eyes.

She coughs out a quiet sob, glad that the school is mostly empty, and shoots a text off her to her dad to come pick her up.

She doesn’t know what she did, but her chest hurts and she can’t believe she’s ending the day the way she started it – crying because of Carmilla.

Maybe this really is the worst day ever.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carmilla Karnstein stays in the shadows, never seeming to notice the people around her. But one person she can't seem to STOP noticing is Laura Hollis. The two soon realize that they have a lot to teach other and that life is all about how you fold it!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Co-written by tumblr users kellyymanning and emilyjunklegacy. This chapter written by kellyymanning. Track the tumblr tag "carmilla origami au" for updates and use that tag to communicate with us if you prefer not to use our ask boxes. Sorry this chapter took too long, but if it makes you feel any better, Amanda knows she's a butt

After having what was probably one of the worst days ever, Friday morning Laura decided that she wasn’t going to let her not-so-great-Thursday dampen her mood today. She knew that statistically, her day would have to be better than the one before, whatever “better” meant.

And it was, kind of.

Her morning had gone pretty smoothly, at least smoother than it did yesterday. Laura had made sure that she had everything ready for her to kind of just get up and go in the morning, because she knew it was inevitable that she would hit the snooze button like, 10 times, and wouldn’t want to get out of bed until it was absolutely necessary.

And that was exactly what happened.

Whenever Laura feels especially upset about something, she likes keeping herself busy in order to take her mind off of whatever it is that is bothering her. She also likes the fact that the busywork she does allows her to calm down a bit so that she feels more sorted and can actually think over and analyze the thing that upset her in the first place.

She hadn’t really gotten around to the whole “thinking” part of her routine after what had happened with Carmilla yesterday.

After the normal ‘let me make sure that the entirety of my room is clean, and that all of my homework for tomorrow is done, and that my dad doesn’t need me to do anything for him’ part of the procedure, Laura remembered that she had promised like, five different people that she’d do fifteen different things for them, and that Spring Break was coming up pretty quickly and her and LaF and the girls kind of needed to get on top of putting together things for the sculptures, and then her mind got focused on like, 80 other things at once, and by the time that she had gotten to the point where she felt satisfied with what she had accomplished and had cleared her mind quite a bit, it was like one thirty in the morning and she _really_ needed to get some sleep.   

So when Laura got up the next morning, she knew that she should probably actually do some thinking about what had happened with Carmilla the day before. She figured she would see Carmilla at least once during the day, and if she didn’t confront her, Laura wanted to at least try and get some answers as to why Carmilla said what she did.

The only time Laura really had to do her thinking was her commute to school. Because they hadn’t gotten around to fixing her bike and she didn’t really want to experience another drive with her dad, Laura’s only other option really was to walk (which she had planned time for when she had set her alarm for the next morning, just in case her dad actually let her). Surprisingly, it didn’t take that much to convince her dad that she’d be fine walking, (he was usually weird about the whole ‘letting her do things by herself thing’) but Laura didn’t question it and agreed to the terms that she’d text him like, 50 times on the way and once she got to school. She knew it was a bit much, but she knows why her dad is so overprotective, and she was thankful for the opportunity to think.

Her train of thought was structured differently than it was yesterday. Yesterday she had spent her time (probably way too much of it) thinking about her and Carmilla in terms of like, their relationship with each other, and feelings, and kind of everything that went along with that, but she didn’t actually think about _Carmilla._

Like, Laura knows how she feels about Carmilla, or at least she’s pretty sure anyway, but just because she thinks that Carmilla is probably one of the most amazing people that she’s ever met, it doesn’t make her any less mysterious.

It’s hard to tell a lot about Carmilla from the way she interacts with other people because she kind of just… doesn’t? Or at least more than she needs to anyway. Laura isn’t even sure that she’s ever seen Carmilla at a locker other than hers.

After she thinks about Carmilla’s general… _Carmilla-ness_ for a while, Laura tries to think about what exactly happened yesterday. She knows that Carmilla doesn’t really like to talk about her feelings, and Laura can sympathize because there are some things that she doesn’t really talking about either. Maybe she had pushed Carmilla too hard yesterday and maybe Carmilla hadn’t actually meant what she had said to her and maybe she shouldn’t have put off trying to think about these things on the way to school because it isn’t even 8am yet and her brain is already starting to feel a bit frazzled.

At least she had the rest of the day to figure out what she would say to Carmilla later.

\--

Laura’s school day was pretty average, kind of more like the days before she started talking with Carmilla.

Only it wasn’t anything like that at all, because now that Laura had gotten used to involving Carmilla in her daily routine and seeing her like, all the time, it was hard not to notice that she wasn’t around.

It wasn’t like Laura had been _actively_ looking for Carmilla or anything, she knew that if she happened to see Carmilla at an inopportune time it might make her frazzled enough to forget about the talking to she plans on giving her later in the day, but she couldn’t ignore the nagging feeling of disappointment as the day went on without even a glimpse of that familiar leather or plaid. There wasn’t any folded paper in her locker, or waiting at her desk, or in her backpack (Laura still isn’t sure how Carmilla managed that one without her noticing), and she knew it was a dumb thing to be worrying about because Carmilla _was_ upset and there were more important things that Laura should be focusing on, like her schoolwork, but then Laura got to thinking that maybe she had actually done something really wrong yesterday and it left her feeling unsettled.

Then Laura’s thoughts started to get the best of her. Because the more she thought about it, the more the question of how much Carmilla actually liked her started floating around in her head.

Like yeah, okay, Carmilla gave her gifts and she was generally nicer to her than… literally everyone else aside from maybe her brother, but maybe she was just able to tolerate her more than she could other people?

Maybe she should just try to focus on the math word problem in front of her.

_If there are b boys in the class, which is three more than four times the number of girls, how many more times can she think about Carmilla before this period is over…_

\--

After she was out of class for the day, Laura took her time at her locker on the off chance that _maybe_ Carmilla would be there.

Her head is in her locker when she hears a “Good, you’re still here,” from down the hall.  

She knows that voice, but she pulls her head out of her locker anyway.

Laura knows that she shouldn’t feel disappointed that it’s Danny walking towards her and not Carmilla, but she can’t help it, and then she remembers that the last time her and Danny had actually gotten a chance to talk to each other, she had yelled at Danny, and Laura wishes that she would’ve just went home so she didn’t have to deal with the likely confrontation from Danny.

“Hey, Hollis.”

Danny walks up to Laura’s locker, still keeping a respectable distance. Laura had seemed… off at lunch today, and she didn’t want to step into the smaller girl’s bubble if she needed space or something.

Laura turns her attention back to her locker and says,  “Look, if you’re here to say ‘I told you so’ I really don’t need to hear it today.” It comes out more bitter than she intended. She’s feeling too much and she really just wants to go home.

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” Laura shakes her head.

Danny is confused for a moment but then it clicks, which just makes her feel a bit guilty. “Oh, no, don’t worry about that. I’m uh, here on a couple of orders of business, actually.” She holds up the manila envelope in her hand before holding it out for Laura to take. “Perr and I started splitting them up during our free period,” Danny explains.

Laura nods and takes the envelope with a mumbled “thanks.”

“And…” Danny leans against the locker next to Laura’s. “I just wanted to apologize for being an ass the other day. And in general re the whole… Karnstein thing.”

Laura stops. It’s not like she’s doing anything productive inside her locker anymore.

“You’re right, that sometimes I probably say things that I shouldn’t,” Danny admits. She shoves her hands into her pockets and Laura shuts her locker.  

“Okay, fine, maybe _more_ than sometimes,” Danny continues. “But I’m like you, you know? I care about my friends a lot and hate to see them…” She tilts her head to try and get a better read on the other girl, trying to figure out the right way to phrase what she’s trying to say.

“Bummed out,” Danny finishes.

Laura zips her bag shut and slings one of the straps over her shoulder.

“I’m not…” Laura shakes her head, but at this point she’s not sure who she’s trying to convince. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long week.”

Danny knows Laura well enough that something more was going on, but she wasn’t about to push Laura  into talking about anything she doesn’t want to talk about, or make her more upset.

“Okay,” Danny says simply. She shuffles her feet a bit and adds, “but if you ever need to talk about… stuff, I’ll be there to listen. No judgment.” She adds, “whatever it is,” to reiterate her point.

Laura looks at Danny for a moment, and she sees from her expression that she means what she’s saying. And when she starts thinking about their thing the other day, Laura decides that it’s dumb for her to still be mad at Danny. Frustrated? Yeah, Danny can be frustrating, but it’s hard for Laura to stay mad at her friend for too long.

She nods at Danny’s offer. “Okay, and same, obviously.” Laura gives Danny a small smile. It’s the first time she’s genuinely felt pretty decent since getting to school today.

“Cool.” Danny gives her a smile back“And so, I guess order of business number…2b? Danny clears the uncertainty out of her throat. “Laura Hollis, if you decide that you can forgive me, because I know that you can’t be mad at more than like, two people at a time or you’ll explode…”

Instead of protesting, Laura just rolls her eyes, unable to help the look of slight amusement from her face. She can appreciate the fact that Danny is trying to make her feel better.

Danny continues, “I was thinking, if you’re not busy right now obviously, that we could hang out and get burgers or like, we can see if that café has that pie you like…

Laura raises an eyebrow. “You’re using pie as a peace offering?”

Danny makes her expression completely serious. “Well yeah, that’s the way to get to a girl’s heart, with food, right?”

Laura remembers a bit of their conversation from the other day and teases, “Mmhmm. And that’s why you have a date tonight, _right_?”

Danny opens her mouth to say something but can’t seem to get anything out, and her cheeks turn a few shades pinker.  “Shut up,” she finally manages to say.

Trying to get the subject off of her she adds, “and I’m going to ignore that pun, by the way, because LaF told me to say something similar and I told them I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction.”

Laura just shakes her head because, well, LaF _would._

She thinks about Danny’s second offer for a moment, pretending like she’s thinking about it more seriously than necessary before saying, “I just have to let my dad know I didn’t get kidnapped,” Laura says, already pulling out her phone.

“So that’s a yes then?” Danny asks.

“Obviously, to both.” Laura finishes the text and hits send.

Danny lets out a small chuckle. “I guess that’s fair.”

Laura’s phone buzzes and she reads the reply, before looking back to Danny. “Okay, we’re good. Just, you know, normal rules apply.”

Danny nods in understanding.

“Sooo…” Laura links her arm with Danny’s as they start walking down the hallway. “About that date tonight…”

“I swear to God, Hollis…”

\--

Carmilla didn’t bother going to school today.

She didn’t really see the point in going when nobody would care that she wasn’t there. Laura was pretty much the only person she ever talked to, but she probably wouldn’t want to see her, not after what had happened yesterday. If her mother brought it up (which Carmilla knew she probably wouldn’t) she’d just say that she took the liberty of giving herself a suspension for the day to ‘teach herself a lesson’ or whatever.

And it didn’t help that she barely slept either.

Every time she tried to close her eyes she would be back at that other school, and she could hear those _god-awful_ -

And she could feel her shoulders hitting the cold metal over and over and-

And then she would think of Laura with her head in her locker, and how no matter how much Carmilla wanted to ignore it or think otherwise, Laura wasn’t _fine_.

She knows that she fucked up. She had snapped, she didn’t keep herself in check, she _made Laura cry._ Carmilla had tried to pretend that she didn’t notice how Laura started to break with every word she spat out at her, or how for a fraction of a second (that seemed to get longer and longer the more she thought about it) Laura seemed tinier, if that was even possible.

Carmilla knew that if she didn’t get her shit together pretty quickly everything would come crashing down around her again.

Not that snapping at Laura one time would make her hate her forever, at least Carmilla didn’t think Laura was like that. But Carmilla also knew that it could be the beginning of a slow unraveling of the kind of shitty person she is, and Laura wouldn’t want to talk to her anymore.

Carmilla could deal with not having friends. She could deal with losing friends. But she isn’t sure she could deal with not having a relationship with Laura.

Laura is unlike any other person that she’s ever met. She’s kind, and she’s gentle, and she’s headstrong and absolutely infuriating at times, but that’s why Carmilla’s so attracted to her. Laura actually gives her the chance to at least _try_ to be a decent person.

Laura is a lot like… _her,_ but the feelings are different.

So different.

 _Amazingly_ different.

Because when she thinks about Laura her brain can’t always come up with a way to string words together in order to describe how she feels.

She’s smitten, and it’s really gross.

And despite appearances, Carmilla likes structure. She likes having plans, even if she is the only one following them. She likes knowing what is going to happen and when it’s going to happen.

So when things like yesterday happen it messes her up and it takes her a while to get her head sorted out again. Carmilla needed the day away from school for operation “get my shit together and let Laura know how I feel about her” happen, or at least to try and figure out how she was going to pull it off.

Silas isn’t exactly the best place to try and fix things with Laura either. There is only so much she would be able to fix with the few times they would see each other in the day anyway.

It doesn’t take Carmilla long to think of a way to at least try and get a dialogue started with Laura. Some things are complicated and difficult to talk about, especially for someone who has never really gotten a chance to talk about those sorts of things to anyone, but with the right setting, it might actually not be that bad.

At least she hopes so.

\--

Carmilla can’t remember a time that she’s ever felt more nervous than she does right now. Nervous isn’t even the right way to describe it, really; it’s too tame of a word for the way that she can feel the anxiousness settle into her bones the longer she waits to walk up to Laura’s door.

Earlier in the day, somewhere between getting into one of the many novels on her bookshelf that she had started but forgotten about again and staring at the last conversation she had with Laura in her phone’s inbox, Carmilla had managed to fall asleep with the book on her face and nothing sent in Laura’s direction.

Naturally she was woken up by her 580 thousand pound brother jumping on top of her.

Seriously, fucking Hell, Will.

But he didn’t try to piss her off as much as he usually would, maybe he had caught onto her shitty mood faster than usual, so Carmilla didn’t actually actively force him out of  her room until he brought up talking with Mom because no, she didn’t care what they talked about, and no, she didn’t want to hear about what “Ma” had said about her, or what her teachers said about her missing class, and no, she wasn’t surprised that their mother “had a thing” and probably wouldn’t get home until sometime late.

What she got from that was that everything was normal and she would get shit later for doing nothing wrong.

Whatever. Mother was the least of her worries.

A little later Carmilla had thrown some stuff into her bag and then had stopped at her brother’s room to throw a twenty at him so he didn’t starve, let him know that she was going out and that she’d call him if she was about to get murdered, and gave him the sisterly advice of not forgetting to use the incognito browser.

He doesn’t need to be babied and she hates that their mom does it.

Carmilla went out to her car and just sat there for a few minutes before working up the nerve to use her phone to actually try and talk to Laura, because she wasn’t about to just show up at her house unannounced and ask if she could go out.

So after an awkward and brief conversation with Laura, Carmilla drove over to Laura’s house, cue nervous Karnstein waiting to walk up to the front door.

Maybe this wasn’t the best idea, after all.

\--

Laura had enjoyed her time out with Danny. It had been forever since the two of them had gotten some time to hang out with each other, without LaF or Perry being there too.

And they actually got to _talk,_ which was nice.

At first it was just about the trivial things, like assignments and all of the tests they should be studying for but were putting off, and Laura tried getting more out of Danny about her date, to which Danny responded with the threat of dumping her milkshake down Laura’s shirt.

So it was pretty normal.

But then the conversation got a little more serious, with Danny even offering genuine advice when it came to Carmilla. She had brought up that admittedly a lot of what she “knew” about Carmilla came from Will mentioned, but maybe in this particular situation Carmilla just needed some space. Danny also told Laura that it’s hard not to notice the fact that Carmilla acts “different” around her, and that it probably wouldn’t take a lot for Carmilla to come around.

So Danny had left her with some things to think about.

She had also left Laura with her sweatshirt, which was super roomy and comfortable, and it gave her the feeling of Danny giving her constant reassurance, which might sound kind of dumb, but Laura really needed it.

A little later, once she had gotten home, Laura decided to start on her homework, since waiting until Sunday night probably wouldn’t be the best idea. While in the middle of trying to look through her book for quotes to use in her lit essay,Laura’s phone notifies her that she has a text. Glancing at her phone, she sees that it’s from Carmilla, and not wanting to give Carmilla the satisfaction of her opening it right away, Laura just pushes her phone off to the side. She really needs to focus on looking through her book anyway.

Of course, when her phone buzzes again with presumably a follow-up text from Carmilla, it wasn’t too long before she caved and picked up her phone again. Just looking at the messages couldn’t hurt, right?

Laura reads the first message.

Carm: Hey.

Laura didn’t know what she was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t a one word message. And that kind of gets to Laura because like, Carmilla doesn’t talk to her all day and all she gets is a ‘Hey’? But then she reminds herself that there’s still another message, which has the opportunity to give her something more than just a “Hey.”   

Carm: Can I call you?

Or not. Carmilla was frustrating, but Laura wasn’t exactly in the right position to tell her that because she wasn’t sure where they stood at the moment. She also didn’t know what Carmilla wanted to talk to her about either.

It was weird that Carmilla had asked to call her. Of course consent was cool, but it was awfully… formal?

Laura debates whether she should respond to Carmilla or not. She doesn’t know what Carmilla wants to talk to her about, so she’s not sure if she’d be prepared to hear what Carmilla has to say.

But then after thinking it over a bit, Laura reasons that she should give Carmilla the benefit of the doubt and listen to what she has to say.

Only Laura is the one calling Carmilla because she wants to have the power of being in control of the conversation.

It’s awkward, and Carmilla gives her a half-assed apology (it’s obvious that they both know it; Laura can tell by Carmilla’s voice, and some things just can’t really be communicated well over the phone), and before Laura knows it, Carmilla is asking if she can take her out somewhere so they can actually talk.

Wait, what?

Since when does Carmilla actively want to _talk_?

Before Laura can even give Carmilla an answer, she catches the comment that Carmilla makes about being in her car already because she’s going out anyway, and immediately starts lecturing Carmilla about driving safely and why it’s important to not be distracted while behind the wheel.

Carmilla tells her that she isn’t driving or anything yet, and makes it a point to promise multiple times that when she was, she wouldn’t use her phone. The sudden lecture catches her off guard, but there’s something in the way that Laura talks about it so passionately that makes Carmilla think that she needs to give her some reassurance.

\--

After she gets off the phone with Carmilla, Laura goes and talks to her dad. She’s already anticipating what he’s going to say, that the plans are last minute and that there are only a few more hours until her curfew (seriously, it’s a little much for someone who is going to be in college in a few years to have to be home that early on a Friday night).

The conversation went pretty much as expected, which only left Laura to get ready for whatever it was that Carmilla had planned. Carmilla had never exactly said _when_ she was coming over, so Laura figures that she has time to sort herself out. Because she didn’t know where they were going, Laura knew that she needed to dress sensibly.

Maybe she should just change her sweatshirt.

\--

Knowing that Laura is okay with listening to her talk doesn’t help Carmilla’s nerves. It also doesn’t help that she knows she royally fucked up, at least in her eyes. She hates the fact that her stomach is in knots, and she hates that she feels like she can pass out at any moment, and the thought of being staked to death sounds a whole lot better than potentially having to talk to Laura’s dad.

Not that she had anything against him in particular. Mr. Hollis seemed like a pretty decent guy who was just a bit over-protective of his daughter.

As Carmilla walks towards Laura’s door, the motion sensor goes off and she feels betrayed by the light. The door opens before she has a chance to knock or ring any bell (and she’s actually kind of relieved about that).

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Laura closes the door behind her as she steps of her house before shoving her hands into the pockets of her sweatshirt.

“You’ve got an hour. I have a pretty early curfew so…”

To Laura’s surprise, Carmilla just nods and doesn’t question or protest it. Maybe she was just trying to be on her best behavior.

“I thought we could go to the park, if that’s okay with you,” Carmilla says quietly.

Laura, though finding the location a bit random, doesn’t protest.

She wonders how good of a driver Carmilla is though.

\--

They’re sitting on a blanket in the middle of a clearing that Laura never knew existed until Carmilla took her through a path hidden by some rocks and the shelter of trees. There is a silence between them; Laura doesn’t want to ruin whatever Carmilla needs to talk to her about and Carmilla has to take a moment to process what she’s actually going to say before she says it.

Finally Carmilla starts. “This probably isn’t going to come off as a great shock, but I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really get along well with other people. I like keeping to myself and I’ve never really had friends. I talked to people sometimes, sure, but it was only the convenience of seeing the same people five days a week. I just got used to it, I guess.” She shrugs. “Besides, when you switch schools a lot, it’s easy to lose touch.”

Carmilla takes a moment to convince herself that that was a decent start before continuing.

“There was…I mean I did have…” Carmilla pauses again and takes a deep breath. Maybe it wouldn’t be as easy as she thought – not that she thought there was going to be anything easy about this at all. It’s hard for her to talk about these kinds of things, because sometimes the ache feels as fresh as if it started yesterday.

“In middle school I met Elle. It sounds disgustingly cliché, but she wasn’t like anybody else I’ve ever met. And… she was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a best friend,” she says softly.

Laura watches Carmilla’s face, watches how she bites her lip and how it seems like she desperately wants to smile at whatever fond memory popped into her head at the formation of Elle’s name, but how somehow it also seems so pained. Laura isn’t sure that she’s ever seen such a struggle on someone’s face before, and she knew that Carmilla had only just started.

When Carmilla feels ready again, she continues. “We did all the dumb things that ‘pre-teen besties’ did. I’m sure you know what that entails.” The details were trivial, and she didn’t really want to spend much time talking about them.

“Her parents…” Carmilla rips a handful of grass out of the dirt and starts arranging the blades into a pattern on her lap.

Laura doesn’t pay any mind to it because she remembers that Carmilla had to have her hands occupied when she had talked to her in the library.

Carmilla starts again after there was a sufficient design in front of her. “Her parents didn’t like me very much. At first I just thought it was because I was over too often, I couldn’t have her over my house, but…” Carmilla takes another deep breath. “They thought I was getting a little ‘too friendly’ with their daughter. When you’re like, twelve, you don’t…at least I wasn’t sure then.” She shakes her head because she knows how stupid it sounds. “At the time I was too young to understand what they meant by that. I was just this naïve little _thing_ that had finally gotten a taste of affection.”

She clarifies, “My feelings for Elle were strictly platonic; they were intense, but well-intended.” Carmilla turns to look at Laura for the first time since she started talking. She takes a moment to try and get a read on how Laura is taking in what she’s said. Carmilla starts to add, “there’s only really been one person that I’ve ever…” but stops because it’s stupid, and embarrassing, and there are some things that Laura should just _get_ by now.      

Carmilla pulls her attention away from Laura again to stop herself from doing anything dumb, and clears her throat. “When you’re young and you just feel completely lost and then _that_ person comes into your life and just makes everything _better,_ they’re going to be your world." She tries shrugging it off like it wasn’t exactly a big deal, even though the opposite was painfully obvious. “Elle’s parents uh, they talked with my mother about… _their concerns_ and the next thing I know my best friend turns on me and my brother and I have to switch schools because mother conveniently got a better position elsewhere.”

Laura has a million questions for Carmilla, but if she’s learned anything from experience, she knows that sometimes the wrong one can slip out. She knows that if she gives her enough time, Carmilla will end up telling her a lot.

So Laura settles for going with the next line of thought that forms in her mind – to give Carmilla some reassurance that she cares about her a lot.

“Carm, I-”

“Didn’t know I was that pathetic?” Carmilla cuts her off before she can finish a sentence and offers a weak smile. “Yeah, most people don’t.”

Laura protests gently, “You know that’s not what I was going to-”

Carmilla cuts her off again. “I know, I know. But I’m sorry about the way I acted yesterday. I was frustrated, and you were _there_ , and I know that it’s a dumb excuse but when it comes to my mother…” She realizes that her breathing has gotten heavier and that everything in her body is starting to feel tense, so she looks to her lap and starts rearranging the blades of grass into a new design. The old one had stopped making sense.

“My mother is kind of a sensitive subject,” Carmilla says quietly. “We don’t exactly agree on a lot of things, and our _lovely_ conversation yesterday proves no exception.” Carmilla knows that she needs to choose her words carefully. “So I was… _upset_ ,” Carmilla picks at the grass, “and then you just kept _pushing_ and I just…” she decides to brush it off her lap and finishes, “snapped.”

Turning to Laura again she adds, “I’m not trying to make excuses _why,_ I just…”

All of this time Laura had been trying listen, observe, and just take it all in. It was a lot, but now the few things she knew about Carmilla before started making more sense. And maybe she had pushed Carmilla too much yesterday when she kept bringing up that she should talk to her mom more. Leave it to her to make things weird because of moms.   

“You don’t have to say any more, Carm,” Laura says gently before shrugging a shoulder. “Apology accepted and all that.”

Carmilla thinks Laura is being unusually quiet, which makes her panic because she isn’t sure if had just spent all that time talking about _those_ things, only to just make things weird.

Laura, meanwhile, is still trying to process a bit, and she knows she has plenty of things she could tell Carmilla about. She knows that she should probably tell Carmilla what she’s thinking about, because it’s only fair since Carm had just shared so much with her, which like, wasn’t like Carmilla at all.

“I’m uh… I’m…” Laura takes her eyes off of Carmilla and looks off into the distance, because she isn’t sure if she can hold it together if she can see the expression of Carmilla’s face. “My mom is a sensitive subject for me too.” She nods a few times before pulling her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them in a hug.

Carmilla studies Laura carefully. She seems smaller than usual, and the fact that the normal talkative, “oh my god your rambling is so cute and adorable,” Laura now seems to struggle with saying a few words, doesn’t sit right with Carmilla. She doesn’t want to search for anything that Laura isn’t willing to give her though.

Laura lets out a shaky breath and thinks about how she’s going to continue, because it’s been forever that she’s actually had to talk to someone about it. Like _really_ talk about it. She isn’t even sure if she can do that now.

“When you grow up without a mom,” she starts carefully, “you kind of want to believe that everyone has a great relationship with theirs, because you didn’t get to have that.” Laura waits for the question that Carmilla doesn’t ask, so she takes a deep breath before continuing. “She – she died when I was little. I don’t really remember much about her but… that doesn’t mean I don’t miss her a lot, you know? And…” Yeah, Laura doesn’t really want to talk about this right now. “That’s all I want to say about that.”

Carmilla stays quiet. She remembers the photo on Laura’s wall, the one with a younger Laura on an older woman’s (though fairly young looking herself) lap, her tiny cheek squished against the woman’s face, and bright eyes (attempting to) look up at her with such adoration. Carmilla had felt jealous for a brief moment then, but now she feels as though she was just being selfish.  She knows that it’s all a matter of circumstance, that it isn’t fair to compare one person’s past to another.

Carmilla knows that Laura has probably heard “I’m sorry” enough to last her a lifetime, so she reaches her hand over to Laura’s, gently prying it away from its grasp around her legs and giving it a squeeze.

Laura unwraps her arms and lays her legs down flat again, dropping the hand that is in Carmilla’s between the two of them, giving Carmilla a squeeze back. It’s her way of saying “thanks,” because she isn’t sure if she can be composed enough to say anything yet.

They just sit there, hand in hand, not feeling the need to say anything for a while. It was a different kind of silence than earlier, one that neither of them really minded.

Laura uses her free hand to support herself as she leans back to turn her attention up towards the sky. She can’t remember the last time she just sat outside and looked up at the stars, granted it’s usually kind of hard to see a lot of them from her house anyway. She didn’t know that there was a place nearby that she could actually see them like this.

If she concentrated enough, Laura could _feel_ them too, burning just as bright inside her as they did in the sky, as they etched their memories into her skin.

She wonders if Carmilla can feel it too.

Laura draws her attention away from the sky and to Carmilla, whose eyes are lost somewhere in the stars the same way hers were just a moment ago. She wants to know what Carmilla is thinking.

Carmilla seems to read her mind (or maybe she just felt a pair of eyes on her longer than they needed to be) and pulls her attention away from the sky and brings it to Laura. “What?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Laura doesn’t want to flat out ask Carmilla what she’s thinking about, so she hesitates a moment to try and think of a way to ask around it.

“When you look up at the stars do you think about the kinds of stories they tell? Like, I don’t know...” Okay, maybe that wasn’t the greatest way for her to start. Laura turns her attention back towards the sky again and tries again. “So like, I kind of see them as being a sort of life after death, which I mean I know it sounds kind of dumb but-”

Carmilla gives her a hand another reassuring squeeze and Laura is reminded of the fact that they are still holding hands. She’s surprised that her hand isn’t tired or anything yet. Maybe it’s because they seem to fit so well.

Laura lets out a breath before continuing. “Like, I think that the stars tell the stories of the past more than they predict the future like a lot of people think. I don’t know, I mean the stars are really thing that are constant through time, and they stretch out just as much as history does, so not only do they see history, but they _are_ history, and they have history _within_ them and I think that when people die their stories get woven into the big…” she searches for the right word, “blanket that everyone else who has already lived is stitched into.” After considering it for a moment, Laura shakes her head. “Okay, I didn’t mean for it to sound that lame but… you know.” She looks at Carmilla to try and get a sense if what she said had made any sense at all.

Carmilla just nods. “It’s comforting,” she starts, choosing to look up at a particularly interesting cluster of stars, “to think how small we are in comparison.”

Laura subconsciously scoots closer to Carmilla, their legs touching.

The action doesn’t seem to throw Carmilla off and she just continues her thought. “All of the lives we’ve led, the people we’ve been…” she shakes her head, “nothing to that light.”

“Wow,” Laura breathes out. “That was really beautiful.”

Carmilla shrugs and turns to look at Laura. “You said pretty much the same thing.”

“Yeah, but you said it better.” Carmilla is giving her this look, and Laura isn’t sure if it had gotten warmer out or it was just her. Maybe she was just tired.

Before either of them could say anything else, the shrill sound of Laura’s phone ringing cuts through the air, and Laura mutters a “crap” before letting go of Carmilla’s hand and pulling her phone out, not even needing to look at who it is before she answer it.

“Heey, Dad,” Laura says sheepishly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t look, we were just-” She pauses and nods, not that her dad can actually see her. “Right now, yep. I love you too. Bye.” She hangs up the phone and lets out a breath.

“So how long do we have until my car turns back into a pumpkin,” Carmilla asks, trying to lighten the mood.

“Uhh… negative five minutes ago? So we should probably go. Now. But you don’t need to speed or anything because I’m already probably going to be grounded til I graduate college.” Laura gets up and helps Carmilla with the blanket. “I know it’s a bit much but… he has his reasons.”

Carmilla doesn’t say anything, but after hearing what Laura told her tonight, she wonders if it has anything to do with her mom. But that’s better to let Laura bring it up another day.

\--

They’re back at the Hollis residence about 10 minutes later, with Carmilla respecting Laura’s wishes and driving the speed limit even with the time crunch, when Carmilla stops Laura from going inside.

“Laura?”

Laura turns around to face Carmilla.

Carmilla looks like she wants to say something, like there is something on the tip of her tongue but instead of coming out it becomes written on her face. Instead, Carmilla reaches into her pocket and pulls out a handful of something, motioning for Laura to open her hand.

When Laura does, she is presented with enough tightly folded stars to form a small constellation.

“They’re the ones I would’ve given you if I had gone to school today or whatever,” Carmilla explains.

Before Laura even gets a chance to appreciate the stars, a look crosses her face, and while Carmilla can’t read it completely at first, she seems to see a sense of… relief?

Oh.

Carmilla answers the thought that she assumes Laura has. “…And you thought I was avoiding you all day.”

Carmilla runs a hand through her hair, thinking for a moment before reaching into her other pocket, her fingers carefully grabbing the folded up piece of paper that was inside.

“Well,” she gently thumbs it before pulling it out of her pocket and handing it to Laura. “This doesn’t exactly make up for it but you know, for your trouble.”

Laura accepts it, and this time she takes a moment to appreciate the piece of folded piece of paper that Carmilla has given her (because she just feels like she really needs to).

It’s a crane. It’s simple, but it’s also really not, because Laura knows that it means so much more. Each fold is precise, and she isn’t sure that she’s ever seen one more unparalleled.

It’s perfect in every way.

Laura doesn’t know what to say, so she does the first thing that her brain tells her to do.

It’s gentle and soft, and granted, it’s just on Carmilla’s cheek, but Laura hopes that her ‘thank you’ in the form of a kiss is sufficient enough.

Laura pulls back and says, “Well um, I should probably get inside cause I’m pretty sure my dad is adding on a year to how long I’ll be grounded for every minute that I’m still standing out here.”

Carmilla just nods once to say she understands and leaves her with a, “Goodnight, Laura,” and waits for Laura to get inside before leaving herself. _Freaking cupcake_.

\--

It isn’t until a little later when Laura was getting ready for bed and pauses to put the crane from Carmilla under her pillow with the other one does she start to piece some things together, slowly realizing what it all means.

… At least she’s pretty sure.


End file.
